Notes on Chapter 18, "Penelope"

1.  Homeric parallel:  Odysseus ultimately, triumphantly, 
returns to his wife's bed, which is a remarkable bed, about 
which she riddles him.  Not quite triumphant, but not defeated, 
Bloom returns to Molly's bed, which is likewise a remarkable (if 
noisy) bed, as we have been hearing all day -- the jingling 
quoits.

The big difference:  "Penelope" herself gets to retell the 
story, and has the last word.  And where Penelope was faithful, 
Molly was not.  YET -- Bloom is absolutely on her mind, as she 
has been on his.  Their alienation is not simple, their 
reconciliation not wholly specious.   

2.  Style:  "monologue (female)" -- interior monologue, but 
differing from the male versions by virtue of its fluidity, 
self-absorption, circling and looping illogicality and 
repetativeness, tendency to conflate men into one amorphous 
mass, and fundamental "yes-ness."

3.  Plot considerations:  Molly knows pretty much everything 
about Bloom, including the things he thinks are secrets.  E.g., 
letters to Martha Clifford, the Mary Driscoll affair, the smutty 
post-cards, his trip to Nighttown. 

Opening misunderstanding of the concluding muttering in "Ithaca" 
(the egg request / promise).   See p. 608.

4.  Characteristic passages:

     610, 613:  confusion of "he," "him"
     611:  Boylan vs. Bloom
     612:  assessment of Bloom's knowledge
     641-642:  mixed feelings about Bloom, maybe a last chance
     643:  conclusion:  YES