On the surface, the numerous references to sports that Joyce makes throughout the novel often times feel random or isolated, little islands of sport existing independent from the other competitive moments in the text (with the exception, however of the recurring references to the Gold Cup or the cycling races. The only obvious connection between the boxing match and the Gold Cup, or the rule about playing sports in the park and the collegiate cycling races appears to be that all instances are sports or examples of competition in daily life. However, when considering each of these instances in a collection, sports and competition serve to sustain specific gender roles and expectations of masculinity and femininity, thus producing an anxiety in those who challenge or fail to live up to those gendered guidelines.
As Bloom goes throughout his day, constantly following him is the pervasive presence of sports, along with underlying expectations of manhood, masculinity, and participation in sports. A common trend that surfaces throughout these interactions is Bloom’s separation and exclusion from masculine and competitive pastimes, from his refusal to drink alcohol with his peers in bars to his childhood memory in “Circe” of wearing a football jersey but being off to the side of his sport playing peers. Bloom is frequently positioned as being outside the sports world, visibly uninterested in the cycling races, horse racing, and engaging in these traditionally male domains. While he never openly expresses a distaste for sports or competition, Bloom’s fixation on the ongoing “battle” between him and Boylan, and his recollection in “Circe” of the he losing a running race after slipping underscore an anxiety he associates with athletic endeavors. Despite all these references to sports, playing of sports, and conversations of sports, Bloom never actually participates in any of these. And as a result of this separation between Bloom and a traditionally masculine domain, Joyce highlights the ways in which Bloom is seen as an inferior male compared to his athletic, beer drinking peers and the numerous people participating in sports around him.
As Joyce recounts Bloom’s day, his multi-faceted love affairs with Martha and Molly (and hers with Boylan) fill his mind just as frequently as his masculine shortcomings become incredibly salient in comparison to his wife’s new man. As a result, this internal competition that Bloom constructs versus Boylan, which Joyce likens to a boxing match, serves as a reminder of Bloom’s physical inferiority. Bloom concentrates on the possible ways he can please Molly, in effect “one-upping” her lover, anxiously questioning his various physical inadequacies. Joyce portrays Bloom’s physical fixations as a feminine characteristic, in Molly’s obsession with constantly comparing her beauty with that of her peers in “Penelope.” In this competition between Bloom and Boylan, Joyce underscores the importance of masculinity in this boxing match, something that Bloom clearly lacks in this head to head battle. As the Boylan and Molly love affair progresses over the course of the novel, Joyce continues to emphasize the importance of masculinity and fitting within gender norms, given that Bloom struggles to successfully handle his wife’s love affair, but also navigate the hyper masculine social world around him.
