With all the irregular movements of Nausicaa Gerty's limping walk, Bloom's masturbation, the jerky flight of a circling bat, the sudden and irregular changes of scene and perspective and finally the motion of the sea giving seasickness (1189; 1162, “Do fish ever get seasick?”) – one cannot help but build up a feeling of “nausea” (1187) over the course of the chapter. But if we can follow the off-the-wall events (and morals) in this chapter, we might begin to sense that they are a portal to epiphany; The errata espoused by Joyce as portal became "irregular erotics" as portal. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay At the beginning of Nausicaa, we get many signs that the pending scene is of a special, radiant character and (self-consciously) "religiously" marked quality. Its events will take place in a "mysterious" hour (1), and will be presided over by the "pure splendor [of] a lighthouse... Mary, star of the sea" (7-8). Songs and incantations to Mary fill the beach; the narrative quickly shifts to evening incantations addressed to her or related ecclesiastical rituals just before (289) and throughout the Bloom-Gerty meeting scene. We have the slight impression that Gerty is the Mary in situ, the special avatar and representative of the famous virgin. A "badge of Mary's son" (639) is in her little drawer of prized possessions as an object that directly associates her with the virgin; she could wear it on her chest and press it to her flesh, thus connecting her metonymically to this "goddess". (It seems more appropriate to call Nausicaa's Mary "goddess" rather than "Mother of God/Jesus"; not once is Mary mentioned in conjunction with the latter description, and the Mary presented appears to be vaguely connected only with other deities/holy entities female, such as "Our Lady of Loreto" (288). She is a "blessed virgin" figure to whom prayers are sent in isolation, she is the first and deity of the chapter, who "presides over all virgins" [and hence the three friends on the beach, two of whom are a sort of "virgin-mothers"] The mention of "Erin" further emphasizes the values ​​of the goddess, that is, as a main and independent divinity who does not need to be connected to a male divinity who it is. Let's mark the chapter. Erin, the mythical female name of the Irish nation, is a "higher power" invoked secondarily by the figure and presentation of Gerty: "God's fair land of Ireland did not hold her equal" (121- 122).She, like Erin, metaphorically "reigns" over all Ireland. The entourage on the beach catches "the last glimpse of Erin" (625), fainting as day turns to night. She, like Mary, is a temporal (moving) goddess of twilight, choosing this time of “moving twilight…gathering” (624) to manifest and be “seen.” The Virgin's epithet, "Mystic Rose" (374), takes place on Gerty's body, further connecting her viscerally to this "goddess." He blushes several times, "turning crimson to the roots of his hair" (454), once (he recalls) in front of a priest and also under Bloom's gaze. Her cheeks were stained "pink", and the color "pink" was on her face. Indeed her face (and thus the person) performed a chameleon-like transition to actually transform into a potentially mystical rose: "a fiery scarlet passed from throat to forehead until the beautiful color of her face became a glorious rose" (519- 520), and "blushes a deep pinkish red" (266). Indeed, Gerty, just after the climax, is described as having a "flower-like face" (764). “He rose” (759), Joyce writes, just as he rises to leave the lingering Bloom and his"flower-like" face seems to possess a "strange splendor" (763). This "glowing" resembles both the halo of a saint and an aura of sexual arousal. In fact, the rose with multiple petals could also allude to the female pubic area. (A perhaps complementary, if more subtle, reference to genitalia to that of Bloom and his "stick" (895); "My fireworks. Up like a rocket, down like a stick..." Bloom , incidentally, subsequently throws the stick into the sand (1270); "stuck"; indicating a successful and accomplished action of metaphorical "copulation" that he undertakes with the "virgin"). Bloom also notices that Gerty's period is coming and reflects deeply on menstruation, linking it to sexual arousal, this series of physiological reflections can be linked similarly to the image of a blood-red rose, the smell (sweet) but pungent of the rose and the passion for which; the rose is a common symbol. As the avatar of the mystical rose, Gerty would not deny Bloom's attentions or desires: "...the intercessory power of the most pious Virgin which was not recorded in any age that those who implored her powerful protection were ever abandoned by her" (378-380). Gerty asserts in her mind that she will accept and "love" him despite his sins (see passage beginning 431). She does not deny Bloom as a supplicant because she possesses the com-passion of the virgin: she is feminine (at the peak of menstruation and in flow with lunar-cosmic forces) and acts according to her "natural" sexual/passionate drives with feeling (com-passion ). It is an impartial agent of sexual feelings, feelings of sadness, guilt and all the others and much more combined. Therefore, the Bloom-Gerty meeting is connected to the pantheon of Catholic imagery and symbolism. When Bloom finally ejaculates, it is at the bursting of a phallic-shaped "Roman candle" - a firework of a nomenclature that alludes to the "Roman Catholic" Church, and resembles the candles of any Catholic church (or, specifically, the flower-threatening candle in the service of Father Conroy (552-555)). We are left with the strange and scandalous suspicion that Bloom and Gerty are celebrating an illicit (but sacred) sacrament, juxtaposed with the eroticized, but "real" sacraments to Mary that are taking place right on the beach and inside the building from which fumes emanate of incense flow and fill the beach (371). But what is the nature and/or spiritual fruits of this unsupervised sacrament? With the central epithet "rose" and set of allusions, Joyce fills this chapter with the greatest density of flower references so far in the book. Reading this chapter is like walking in a field of fragrant and exotic vegetation; we read of "violets" (230), a "bouquet of flowers" (336), "white rose perfume" (641), "purple ink" (642), "purple garters" (800), "heliotrope... hyacinth ...jessamine", (1009-1010), "sunflowers" (1089), "rhododendrons" (1098), as well as the flowers described in the various images of ecclesial rite ("the flowers and blue banners of the blessed virgin association": 448). And indeed, Henry Flowers/Bloom, seems to experience a kind of intensified floral bloom: even when he opens his coat to try to smell a "man's smell" he is approached by a floral scent (1041). The feminine invaded every part of his being and flooded even his most personal physicality. Bloom's first and most timely (in terms of the course of his epic day) correspondent of female-erotic/erotic epiphany, Martha, presaged this moment. in his effusive but oblique letter. Henry, in this chapter, really hits a well-timed shot where he can "Flower" and "Bloom" (ejaculate?); he is "damn happy" (786) that he didn't "do it" in the bathroom that morning after Martha's letter and that he saved his juices forthis rare moment afforded by a convergence of circumstances. First, there are the distracting fireworks which give Bloom and Gerty privacy from onlookers (they are also initially mistaken for lightning – something which would indicate the sympathy of the cosmos; a pathetic mistake which Joyce avoids by replacing it with an event" "cosmic" created by man, but to which it alludes anyway). Secondly, there are the lines of force that radiate from Gerty's person (see 949, in relation to the dance, linked perhaps more generally to its pre-menstrual lunar attraction), and the specific influence of the evening which causes the women "open like flowers" (1089). It is a disturbing factThe meeting of "Chance" (1271) on the long trajectory of "forever" (1254), in which Bloom must confront the paradox of erotic return; couples in rhododendrons and the fleeting uniqueness of a concrete moment of meeting. , Erin, the Church, Ireland and the old man and the young girl Gerty) that Martha (via her erotically nested errata) introduced; an ecstatic potential, previously manifested only through clues in “torn space,” is being realized. Martha planted the seed of masturbation, as he had done before, looking at the lotus flower in the bathtub. Bloom was triggered by distant, repressed and seemingly randomly induced foreplay of an oblique nature from elusive women… Indeed, a foreboding and slightly titillating second incident that frames the events in Nausicaa; it is the narrative "compressed" in the museum when he tries to look "up" at the skirts of the stone goddesses, to see "if they..." in the chapter. 8. Bloom himself mentions this incident as one of the highlights of his "Long Day": "Museum with Those Goddesses" (1215). The scene with Gerty, in which he glances furtively up her skirt, is a parallel (or expanded) version of the earlier inspection of the marble statues of the goddess in the library. A statuary imagery is applied to Gerty, "Greekly perfect...veined alabaster" (88-89), and moving from pagan to Christian, one can also well imagine a white effigy of the blessed virgin. In both episodes, Bloom, from afar, looks up the skirt of an indifferent (or rather welcoming, in Gerty's case) goddess/woman. Even if Gerty is now a living woman of flesh (contrary to the only imagined Martha and the stone women of the library), there still exists the distinctive phenomenon of distance between the two "lovers" (as there is between Bloom and his wife and daughter, central women in his profane existence). Joyce spends a lot of (ironic) narrative time developing Gerty as an embodied "ideal" of Irish beauty and young womanhood in general, with all the allusions to her reading of fashion magazines, grace and goodness, etc. Thus, Bloom is directly connected to this ideal only through the eyes, and yet, paradoxically, it is a highly sexualized encounter based on "looking but not touching": it is an "immaculate erection". We might start to think that Bloom really is Catholic. faith (despite being a simple convert): he embraces the invisible Mary perhaps more than an average Catholic. And, when he realizes that she is "lame"; the universe/event designed a perfect sacrament for him. The perfect ideal of woman (all the steps spent building up how ideal Gerty is in every way) is embodied in the host (Gerty and Bloom's bodies) is reduced to the material and embodied in imperfect (sin-infected) human flesh. Bloom's sinful errata (which she vows to accept) merge with her secret, hidden physical errata (such as Bloom's masturbation). We see that they are matched and mutually attracted not unlike Bloom's realization that he and Molly, like most husbands and wives, are a beautiful couple: "As God created them, he," (1277).