It is true that Leopold Bloom is an interesting and complex character, and Joyce does an incredible job at showing just how much one person can fluctuate throughout the course of a single day. Throughout Ulysses we see a slew of facets of Bloom’s life, and much of the time he appears to be timid, weak and insecure. James Joyce’s Ulysses uses Leopold Bloom to demonstrate the characteristics of what Joyce thought was the “new womanly man.

We see right from the very beginning of Calypso when Bloom is introduced that he is an odd character with what were markedly feminine and submissive characteristics especially for the time period in which the novel was written; Bloom is up early in the morning feeding the cat and running errands for his wife Molly while she lays in bed. “You don’t want anything for breakfast? A sleepy soft grunt answered: — Mn. No. she didn’t want anything”(Joyce 58). Compliance and complacence; this just classically sets the stage of most of Bloom’s behavior for the rest of the novel. It is intriguing that we see Joyce exploring such aspects of Bloom because it is common opinion that Bloom actually represents Joyce and his innermost feelings and Iexperiences.

As we enter Lotus Eaters Bloom becomes even more feminine, although never once does Joyce imply homosexuality; Bloom is far too sexually obsessed and focused on women to ever be considered gay. Bloom signs his secret love letter to Martha as:

Henry Flower, Esq.
c/o P.O. Wesltand Row,
City. (Joyce 74)

The flower imagery continues throughout the chapter, and Martha includes a small flower in her return letter to him. On his walk back he runs into M’Coy where we again see his fear and meek attitude towards the world. He neither has the courage to refuse M’Coy nor the honesty to give him what he wants; he is completely cowardly even in both large and small matters:

Bloom tries to get rid of M’Coy, says he is going “Nowhere in particular” for fear that, if a destination is stated, M’Coy will offer to accompany him; anticipating a well-known maneuver of M’Coy to borrow a valise for his putative wife’s concert tour, announces that his own wife is also touring…M’Coy doesn’t ask and Bloom doesn’t refuse, the scene being static.

The end of the episode just leaves Bloom in a lifeless and drugged state where he is even more powerless than he normally is. We also see that even when Bloom does try in the feeblest and most pathetic, perverted type of circumstance, he seldom succeeds. “In this chapter some actions are prevented by choice, some by accident: Bloom would have liked to look at the ankle of the girl getting up into her carriage, but he succeeds in almosting it” .

In Hades, Bloom is set within a group of his peers, and now we see that he is not only dominated by his wife, but he is feminine, weak and defenseless here as well. We also see his silent protest as the men pass Boylan in the street on their way to Paddy’s funeral. It is clear that this is eating away at him, yet he does absolutely nothing to stop such. He is also singled out in this chapter as not only weak, but as an outsider because of his Jewish faith. It is odd that what is thought to be Joyce’s autobiographical work would lend itself to a character of such extreme perversion, failure, complacence, and disgust. Maybe this is what he saw himself as, even if it was not necessarily true in reality.

The critic James Maddox finds evidence here that Bloom, the apostle of natural humanity, is poignantly unable to benefit from his own creed: he asserts the natural cycle but lacks both a father and son, he defends love, but is betrayed by his wife; he denies death but is deprived by it of all lineage.

It is also interesting that not only is Bloom portrayed as womanly and submissive, but Molly is similarly depicted as dominant and as ruling coldly in the relationship. She justifies her actions and feels no remorse. Especially in Molly’s soliloquy we can see the true colors that lie behind the pretty face.

Our experience of “Penelope” as an intimate look at a woman’s most private moments and thoughts is the ultimate pretension of the narrative. By “Penelope” we have moved far from the public setting of “Circe” or the mediating presence of the catechizer in “Ithaca.” We feel we are inside Molly’s mind and bed. But this illusion of intimacy between Molly and her reader is destroyed as often as it is created. We are not privileged to be watching her bleed or moan, for her bodily functions and sexuality are always available for public consumption, always part of a staged performance. The least likely place to find Molly making love is in her bed.

While Molly is not at all manly or lacking beauty, she is definitely domineering in and manipulative in her own way. She justifies cheating on Bloom with Boylan by saying that it is his fault for not performing satisfactorily in bed. This is clearly not a way to justify such unacceptable behavior. It is possible also that Bloom’s submissiveness and her dominance are completely complimentary. The death of their son Rudy has caused a lack of sexual relations and therefore a breach of the marriage contract, and so it is only right that Molly may sleep with Boylan. Bloom’s fear feeds Molly’s twisted mind games and domineering yet meditative attitude. It is possible this results from her being almost a prisoner of the house; in the day of Ulysses she never leaves her bed, not once until her soliloquy where she goes to menstruate. And then “she seems to burst the confines of her present situation and fly from her jingly bed to a time which is beyond the present time and a place beyond the present place”.

It is likely that if Bloom would just become more of a man and stand up to Molly things would be different; she would stop living in such a fantasy world and be brought down more to reality. But Bloom cannot seem to

The final few episodes show that Bloom has in fact grown, and even though it has only been a single day, the progress is visible. We do see Bloom’s affinity grow for his son figure, Stephen, and he does protect him when he is in the brothel district and take him home. We also see Bloom defend his Jewish creed and almost break out into fisticuffs over it. We see the conscience and caring side that we thought could scarcely exist in such a man. While there are examples in the novel where Bloom actually does stand up for himself, but it is more common that he lives in this world of perversion and introspective fear.

There is much skepticism that the next day will be much different than this one; but we know that anything is possible in the peculiar town of Dublin. Bloom may finally live up to things he knows he should do. Maybe Molly will not go with Boylan to Belfast, and maybe the couple will resume sexual relations. Joyce takes the reader through an entire day, just one single day, and then allows the reader to judge whether the experience they journeyed through with the characters of Ulysses was just a rarity or the normal way that Bloom, the Womanly Man, interacts with his world.