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N ElL L 'S I RISH CAT H 0 LI CIS M
581
its rather gross sensuality." Nina
in
Strange Interlude
is "tall with
broad square shoulders, slim strong hips and long beautifully de–
veloped legs- ..." But the O'Neill-Irish sexual fantasy receives its
proper apotheosis in
Moon for the Misbegotten
in Josie Hogan
who is
five feet eleven in her stockings and weighs around one hundred and
eighty. Her sloping shoulders are broad, her chest deep with large, firm
breasts, her waist wide but slender by contrast with her hips and thighs.
She has long smooth arms, immensely strong, although no muscles show.
The same is true of her legs. . . . She is all woman.
Jamie himself says: "'I like them tall and strong and voluptuous,
now, with beautiful big breasts.' " And looking at Josie, this monu–
ment of female flesh (which is available to him, if he so desires, but
which he has classified as "nice girl"), he murmurs-he is drunk–
"You have a beautiful strong body, too, Josie-and beautiful eyes
and hair, and a beautiful smile and beautiful warm breasts." It
would seem that only a gigantic female breast, cosmic in scope, can
make up to the Irish male for his frustrations. And, characteristically,
Jamie Tyrone spends the last hours of his fictional existence (the
last scene in
A Moon for the M isbegotten)
with his head resting on
the bosom of Josie Hogan. Characteristically too, since he has
(wrongly) classified her as a "nice girl," like his mother, a devotee
of the Virgin, so to speak, he keeps the relaJtionship scrupulously
filial. So too when Joyce came to create his woman of the earth,
Molly Bloom, she must be monumental in proportions. The first
glimpse that we have of her is through the voyeuristic eyes of Mr.
Bloom, at eight o'clock in the morning in the bedroom at 7 Eccles
Street (this is the first description in the book of Molly): "He looked
calmly down on her bulk and between her large soft bubs, sloping
within her nightdress like a she goat's udder."
A secondary creation of the male rebellion against the Puritan
aspects of his culture is the "ne'er-do-well." Any large Irish family
used to produce at least one of these. (He's usually your "uncle.")
He tends to be, of course, unmarried; he is usually good-looking; he
has more than his share of the Irish charm; he has a fine sense of
humor; and everybody likes
him.
He is also completely irresponsible,
can never hold a job; and devotes himself to liquor and women, al-
