Bloom likes to write love letters with dirty words in them—as
did his creator (though in later life Joyce was notably
prudish in society, refusing to countenance conversational
obscenities). Ulysses is sparing in its use of dirty
words, but even when they are tactfully omitted, their absent
presence opens windows onto unseen worlds.
In Penelope Molly thinks of a letter that Bloom
wrote when he was courting her, and how troublesomely it mixed
sex up with social niceties: "then he wrote me that
letter with all those words in it how could he
have the face to any woman after his company manners making it
so awkward after when we met asking me have I offended you
with my eyelids down of course he saw I wasnt he had a few
brains not like that other fool Henny Doyle he was always
breaking or tearing something in the charades I hate an
unlucky man and if I knew what it meant of course I
had to say no for form sake dont understand you I said and
wasnt it natural so it is of course it used to be
written up with a picture of a womans on that wall in
Gibraltar with that word I couldnt find anywhere
only for children seeing it too young then writing every
morning a letter sometimes twice a day I liked the way he made
love then." One of the words next to the obscene drawing in
Gibraltar seems to have sent her in search of its meaning, and
by the time she met Bloom she was neither ignorant of nor
offended by such words. But even now she prefers not to use
them: "the picture of a womans on that wall."
In Lotus Eaters Bloom has started a correspondence
with a woman who calls herself Martha Clifford, and he fears
that she will probably not have written him back because he "Went
too far last time." But she has written
back: "I am awfully angry with you. I do wish I could punish
you for that. I called you naughty boy because I do
not like that other world. Please tell me what is the real
meaning of that word? Are you not happy in your
home you poor little naughty boy?" Martha's "other world" is
clearly a slip for "other word," probably the word whose
meaning she asks in the next sentence of her letter. But the
slip suggests that she may not like to think about that other
world of carnal desire that the world of polite society
manages to repress.
But letters like this can also open up worlds of romantic
feeling. Molly wishes that Boylan had the capacity to write
such letters: "I wish somebody would write me a loveletter his
wasnt much and I told him he could write what he liked yours
ever Hugh Boylan in old Madrid silly women believe love is
sighing I am dying still if he wrote it I suppose thered be
some truth in it true or no it fills up your whole day and
life always something to think about every moment and see it
all round you like a new world."
In Bloom's mind the phrase "other world" acquires still
another meaning. At the end of Hades, having brooded
at length on death and religious consolations, he
thinks, "There is another world after death named
hell. I do not like that other world she wrote. No more do
I. Plenty to see and hear and feel yet. Feel live
warm beings near you. Let them sleep in their maggoty beds.
They are not going to get me this innings. Warm beds: warm
fullblooded life." Martha's phrase calls up all the claims of
philosophers and theologians that a truer world lies somewhere
beyond this one. Molly, who is religious, may dream of a life
free of such burdens as menstruation: "O this nuisance of a
thing I hope theyll have something better for us in the
other world." But Bloom is content to take life in
the body for truth.
