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Bantam Lyons
The young Gertrude MacDowell is the central character in “Nausicaa.” The first half of the episode is narrated in her sentimental, self-conscious voice and reveals her obsession with finding romance, maintaining proper etiquette, and conforming to the ideas about beauty that she reads about in Princess Novelette magazine. As she sits on the rocks by Sandymount Strand, Gerty laments her failed romance with Reggy Wylie—even though she scarcely knew him. She debates whether she will ever find a man better than Reggy, then is pleasantly surprised when an elegant-looking gentleman (Leopold Bloom) starts staring at her with his “superbly expressive” eyes. She develops an elaborate fantasy, in which Bloom sweeps her off her feet and becomes an ideal husband. In reality, Bloom is masturbating while he stares at her, and she doesn’t seem to mind. She even shows off her legs and underwear during the fireworks scene that represents his orgasm. Meanwhile, she’s careful to hide the flaw that she indirectly alludes to throughout the episode: her lame leg, which becomes apparent to Bloom when she stands up and limps down the beach. Her character is in large part a parody of the character of Gertrude Flint from Maria Susanna Cummins’s 1854 novel The Lamplighter. On the one hand, Ulysses’s description of Gerty shows how male-dominated, materialistic modern cultures force women to evaluate themselves from men’s perspective. Not only is Gerty singularly obsessed with how others will perceive her beauty, but the reader never learns if the narration is really a faithful representation of Gerty’s own perspective (rather than, for instance, Bloom’s projection of what Gerty might be thinking while he masturbates to her). On the other hand, Gerty is the first woman who gets a significant voice in Ulysses, and her appearance foreshadows the novel’s final episode, in which Molly Bloom takes a much broader view of her value as a woman and a much more liberated approach to her sexuality.
Gerty MacDowell Quotes in Ulysses
The Ulysses quotes below are all either spoken by Gerty MacDowell or refer to Gerty MacDowell. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Episode 13: Nausicaa
Quotes
Yes, it was her he was looking at, and there was meaning in his look. His eyes burned into her as though they would search her through and through, read her very soul. Wonderful eyes they were, superbly expressive, but could you trust them? People were so queer. […] Here was that of which she had so often dreamed. It was he who mattered and there was joy on her face because she wanted him because she felt instinctively that he was like no-one else. The very heart of the girlwoman went out to him, her dreamhusband, because she knew on the instant it was him.
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And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher […] it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back that he had a full view high up above her knee […] O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O! O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lovely, O, soft, sweet, soft!
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Gerty MacDowell Quotes in Ulysses
The Ulysses quotes below are all either spoken by Gerty MacDowell or refer to Gerty MacDowell. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Episode 13: Nausicaa
Quotes
Yes, it was her he was looking at, and there was meaning in his look. His eyes burned into her as though they would search her through and through, read her very soul. Wonderful eyes they were, superbly expressive, but could you trust them? People were so queer. […] Here was that of which she had so often dreamed. It was he who mattered and there was joy on her face because she wanted him because she felt instinctively that he was like no-one else. The very heart of the girlwoman went out to him, her dreamhusband, because she knew on the instant it was him.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher […] it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back that he had a full view high up above her knee […] O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O! O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lovely, O, soft, sweet, soft!
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