In Imperial Leather by Anne McLintock, she asserts that women are the land that must be discovered, penetrated, named and above all possessed. In the works of James Joyce, particularly those of Ulysses and The Dubliners, he explores women who fit McLintock's description: women as commodities. It was not only women who were commodified, often sexually, but also Ireland. The very land and homeland of Joyce's characters, it is also subject to property and export. Possessing a distinct place in the colonial sphere, Ireland is depicted by Joyce as the national woman sold through her people and material goods, while simultaneously participating in the purchasing trade of other nations. The very depth with which people, objects, and nations are embedded in commodity culture raises the question of whether anything is truly untouched by modern-day consumerism and, ultimately, questions of authenticity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayJoyce places women in the Marxist commodity class by depicting them in her novels as manifestations of popular culture that can be heralded , commodified, bought or sold. In Ulysses, the episode "Calypso" subtly presents advertising with its heightened connotations of commercial sexuality, making Leopold Bloom's daughter Milly an object of popular culture. In the letter she wrote home, she thanked them for her new swimsuit: “Everyone says that I am the most beautiful in my new family… I am now going into the photography business.” There is an implicit connection between its enhanced aesthetic and its commercial success, especially in an industry that emphasizes women's sexuality, pin-up girls and even pornography. Milly is now aware of her body's capacity to improve her "business" (p. 63), because she is now "vain: very" (p. 64). In contrast to the prostitutes scattered throughout Ulysses, the most blatant embodiments of sexual commodities, Milly is a young girl, who was only “fifteen yesterday” (p. 64). It is therefore insinuated that commodification occurs from a very young age, and this notion is perpetuated through Gerty in the episode “Nausicaa”. Gerty is quantified in monetary terms as a “good sterling girl…with a little heart worth its weight in gold” (p. 339). It is built from the very commodity that plays such a key role in global trade, “gold”. Furthermore, she wonders why "one couldn't eat something poetic like violets or roses" (p. 337), revealing a desire to ingest a diet of romantic clichés that is only reiterated as a product of consumerism. Gerty becomes, after all, a sexual object for Bloom and the focus of his voyeuristic public masturbation. She is aware of his gaze and seems to kiss him, “lifting her skirt but just enough… to draw attention to the story of the gentleman opposite who is looking” (p. 340). This act is made even more perverse by the fact that Gerty is roughly the same age as Milly, indicating the blurred boundaries of acceptable female objectification. If the women and girls of Ireland can be commodified, then it is not surprising that Ireland, as a nation, especially considering its struggle against the British Empire, could be seen by Joyce as the ultimate case of a woman being bought and sold. In the Dubliners' short story "Two Gallants", the feminized harp that Lenehan and Corley pass is a representation of Ireland. The harp, in the hands of hismale harpist, “did not care that his blankets had fallen on his knees, seemed weary of the eyes of strangers and the hands of his master.” Ireland is not ashamed, "does not care" that she is naked, but looks "wearily" and those who listen to her music under the command of another. There is a tone of resignation around his song. The harpist and the harp then become an allegory of Ireland under the British Empire in the eyes of the world which watches them play in the hope of money. These connections are made more explicit through the choice of the song “Silent, O Moyle,” whose harp personification as Ireland was celebrated by artist Thomas Moore in his other works (p. xx). The Irish nation is the homeland of Joyce and the inhabitants of his novels, presented as a mother in “Eumeus” of Ulysses by the politician Parnell: “Ireland,” said Parnell, “could not spare a single one of her sons” (p 595). ). With the image of Ireland established as that of a wife and mother, Joyce explores Parnell's statement by showing that although she “could not spare one of her sons”; Ireland seemed able to spare many of its daughters. Joyce presents the daughters of the motherland as building blocks of what constitutes Irish country. McLintock points out that women are generally seen as the symbolic bearers of the nation and, appropriately, in Joyce's works their commodification represents the objectification and slow disintegration of Ireland. Gerty is “the finest example of an attractive young Irish girl anyone could wish to see” (p. 333), the embodiment of an untouched and prosperous young Ireland. However, by becoming the sexual target of Bloom's public masturbation, Gerty and the pure vision she represents become corrupted and debased. Objectification therefore undermines the foundations of a nation. Gerty's withered leg becomes a symptom, the disabling factor in an otherwise pure specimen of a girl: "Mr. Bloom watched her limp away" (p. 351). His handicap suggests a limping Ireland, in decline under British rule, held back by the commodification of its products and its population. In Dubliners, the short story's namesake "Eveline" also represents the selling out of Ireland and its people (especially its women) as a means of weakening the country. Eveline chooses “to leave her home” (p. 25), Dublin, to follow her lover Frank “to become his wife and live with him in Buenos Ayres where he had a house waiting for him” (p. 27). . The Irish home is rejected in favor of the distant and exotic “Buenos Ayres,” but there are also undertones of a sinister industry that indicate a deep-rooted problem in the realm of human labor. Buenos Aires had an international reputation as a center for the importation of Irish women for sexual exploitation. Thus, even though Eveline's ultimate choice to reject Frank, "his eyes gave him no sign of love, farewell or recognition" (p. 29), may indicate that she avoided becoming a victim of human trafficking, the fact remains that it and Ireland have been vulnerable to the industry. Eveline represents all Irish women who weakened, tarnished and highlighted their country's struggle by being victims of the white slave trade. However, Ulysses shows that it is not only the commerce of men that can build or break a nation, but also that of its material goods which the earth also presents. In Ulysses, Joyce describes this in a way that connects the sale of Irish produce to his painful memories of the Great Famine of the 1840s, and then to his place in the British Empire. As Stephen Dedalus walks the streets in “Lestrygonians,”he sees a “divided herd of marked cattle” (p. 94) and thinks “probably for Liverpool”. Roast beef for old England. They buy all the juicy ones” (p. 94). Cattle are "marked" by fire literally, but also figuratively as Irish brand products. Their explicit export to "old England" in Dedalus's mind resonates with a debated issue of the Famine: the continued export of Irish cattle to England, even after the potato plague had destroyed the harvested and left the Irish hungry. The livestock trade thus illustrates how raw materials played a crucial role in the creation or destruction of a nation – in this case, it contributed to the struggles that followed the ruin of food sources. Potato blight is mentioned more explicitly in a fight during “Circe” between Bloom and the prostitute Zoe over a potato. 'She greedily puts the potato in her pocket' (p. 450) and later, when Bloom calls for it, he justifies his plea by asserting that 'it's nothing, but still a relic of poor mother' ( p.518). The potato as a symbol of both the Irish homeland and the struggle for food during the famine is reiterated here, as is the endearing sentiment behind "Poor Mama" Ireland. The goods of Ireland have tired her, and in the pitiful tone of "poor mother", it suddenly becomes clear that the potato has become a "relic", a symbol reflecting the decline of her country . The parallels between the commodity and female sexuality are drawn again when Zoe reveals “her bare thigh and unrolls the potato from the top of her stocking” (p. 518). The physical proximity of the staple food to the apex of Zoe's thighs, as well as the image of its slow removal, is reminiscent of the way in which the export of potatoes or any other Irish product constitutes a loss for the woman, the homeland, where he comes from. . Nevertheless, how authentic is Ireland in Joyce's work as a victim of consumerism and commodity trade? Although the commodification of Ireland, its products and its people remains, Joyce undermines it by demonstrating Ireland's imperialist role. Products from other British colonies are scattered throughout Ulysses and are an integral part of everyday Irish life. The Irish domestic necessity of “tea” is mentioned more than seventy-five times during the novel, a good imported from the Orient that also echoes a mastery of English tradition. The Flowers' pantry, studied in the episode "Ithaca", is full of goods imported from elsewhere in the empire. On the middle shelf only one could find "soluble coca, five ounces of tea chosen by Anne Lynch at 2/- per pound...the best granulated sugar cubes, two onions, one the largest, Spanish , whole, the other, smaller, Irish. , divided in two with increased surface area and more odorous” (p. 628). There is the “cocoa” of Africa, the “tea” of the Orient, and the “granulated sugar” of the Caribbean, all national slaves and commodities of the British Empire. Even in his nationalist struggle, Joyce depicts Ireland playing the imperialist game, and therefore not only a victim, but also a conqueror alongside the British in nurturing the empire through economic means. Just as the commodification of Ireland hampered it, the same dilemma for the other colonies rebuilt it. The onions demonstrate the difference between independence and colonization, with the Spanish onion "whole" and "larger", in contrast to an Irish onion "halved" with an "increased surface area", figuratively speaking the surface of the country..