Beyond this, however, little can be said about any more stringent pattern. Also, “Penelope” both begins and ends with Molly’s thoughts about Bloom. Countering this amorphous non-structure is Joyce’s use of only eight sentences to compose and impose some measure of order on the episode. Recumbent as she is in this episode, Molly’s physical position suggests mathematical infinity - the “infinite variety” of womanhood. Molly (Marion Tweedy) was born on September 8, 1870, and on her birthday, Molly recalls, Bloom once bought her eight poppies. This technique suggests that Molly is infinity, whose symbol is a horizontal 8.
Joyce’s technique in “Penelope” is illustrated not so much by stream-of-consciousness narrative as it is developed by word association - that is, Molly’s thoughts do not “flow” in a consecutive, narrative pattern instead, in “Penelope,” Joyce reproduces the seemingly random ideas of a sleepy woman in the wee hours of the morning. In Joyce, the scene for “Penelope” is the Blooms’ bed, whose jingling sound has been heard, vocally foreshadowed, and developed through several motifs in Ulysses throughout this single day of June 16th, 1904. At first, however, Penelope does not recognize her husband she is convinced that he is indeed Odysseus, her husband, only after he is able to describe to her the construction of their bed, a fact known only to the two of them. In Homer’s epic, Odysseus is reunited with Penelope after he has slain the numerous suitors.