Linguistic Silence and the Alienation of Female Characters in Ulysses and The Blind Owl

Abstract

This article intends to demonstrate how female characters in Ulysses and The Blind Owl are deprived of full means of communication and expression. The connection with the concern with alienation in these two novels is that it is in the representation of female language that they show how characters—female characters and by extension women in general—are alienated from and marginalized by the masculine voices of the novels’ narrators and focalizers. It is noticeable that the narrative style of Ulysses and The Blind Owl, although very innovative and experimental, still allocates almost no space to female voices and language, with the major exception of Molly Bloom’s interior monologue. With the benefit of more recent perspectives, Molly’s narrative can be read as deriving in some ways (the lack of punctuation being one major indication) from the semiotic and subverting the established discipline of language use (the symbolic), thus, as an example of écriture féminine.