Penelope, Molly Bloom, and the Work of Mourning

This article focuses on a neglected Homeric correspondence found in Joyce's schema for the 'Penelope' episode of Ulysses . It considers the famous 'web' or shroud that Penelope weaves in anticipatory mourning for her aged father-in-law Laertes and links it with the woollen jacket that Molly knitted for the burial of her son Rudy. The comparison highlights Molly's status as a bereaved mother and reinforces the central position of mourning in the thematic structure of the novel. The emphasis in Ulysses on bereavement and on customs associated with it reflect Ireland's status as an outpost of mourning in the face of the 'dying of death' that, elsewhere in Western culture, characterized the turn of the twentieth century.