Concealing Dalkey Hill Evasion and Parallax in Nausicaa - Literature Essay Samples

T.S. Eliot declared that Ulysses was a masterpiece because it demonstrated the futility of all prior literary styles. Indeed, the episodes of Oxen of the Sun and Aeolus could be taken as challenging primers on English style and rhetoric. This kaleidoscopic potential is seemingly reduced to a stark black-and-white vision in Nausicaa. As many critics have pointed out, Joyce stylizes Gerty MacDowells half of the narrative with a saccharine veneer which euphemizes her sexual encounter (itself a distanced and euphemized rendezvous) with Bloom. The first-time reader and seasoned critics alike are led into sneering at Gerty behind the safety of the authors overt critique of her superficiality; only when Joyce reveals the psychological origin of her constant evasion her lame leg, a condition which is only hinted at until Bloom notices it post-climax are the first seeds of pity sown in the readers mind. The audiences appreciation of Gertys defect grows ten times worse (301) in light of Blooms uncharacteristically cavalier and scurrilous attitude towards a fellow outsider in which he, too, is guilty of his own brand of sexual evasion. As the reader implicitly identifies Blooms rather heartless outlook with his own, he compensates for his initial condemnation of Gertys character by sentimentalizing her with a Dickensian gloss and thus is held as culpable of evasion as the episodes heroine and hero. Joyces manipulation of his audiences expectations is never deployed through explicit moralizing but through his parallactic style (a concept distinct from the stylistic cornucopia present elsewhere in the novel), a shifting mode through which he questions the objectivity of sentiment.Euphemism, linguistic and otherwise, is the most obvious form of evasion throughout Nausicaa. But the root of Gertys flowery language runs deeper than simple womens-magazine parody. The ambiguous tension between romanticization and shame-avoidance clouds the first half of the narrative, even before Gerty has been introduced. After Cissy Caffrey coaxes the words A jink a jink a jawbo out of the baby, Joyce continues the baby-talk alliteration: Cissy Caffrey cuddled the wee chap (284). Cissy later chides her two other brothers for fighting: And you, Jacky, for shame to throw poor Tommy in the dirt sand (285). Shame is the operative word here; the conservative narrative dispenses only negations and puns on prostitution: His little man-o-war top and unmentionables were full of sand but Cissy was a past mistress in the art of smoothing over lifes tiny troubles (285). The cause of Tommys own thrice-repeated cry of Nao, a negation which recalls the cats Mkgnao (45) and Mollys Mn (46) of Calypso, is incontinence, an act so shameful it must be hidden from Blooms view: CissyÃÆ',,-whispered to Edy Boardman to take him there behind the pushcar where the gentleman couldnt see and to mind he didnt wet his new tan shoes (285).Underneath the hyperbolic surface, Joyce exerc ises great restraint when dropping faint clues to Gertys lameness. When the childrens ball falls by her feet, Gerty is forced to kick it away and the narrative voice merges with hers: Gerty drew back her foot but she wished their stupid ball hadnt come rolling down to her and she gave a kick but she missed and Edy and Cissy laughed (292). Gerty or Joyce, whoever is controlling the voice here doesnt detail any further why A delicate pink crept into her pretty cheek (292) after her missed kick; the decision not to succumb to self-pity concerning her lameness is the product of a stoicism we are initially unequipped to attribute to Gerty, or is obscured by her omnipresent shame which manifests itself later in the paragraph (when induced by Blooms gaze): She felt the warm flush, a danger signal always with Gerty MacDowell, surging and flaming into her cheeks (292). Her blushing itself serves a similarly dual purpose, attracting Bloom as coquettish make-up and exteriorizing her juven ile embarrassment. Joyce prompts a dissection of his/Gertys heightened prose when she first acknowledges her lameness (without ever specifically defining it):Art thou real, my ideal? it was called by Louis J Walsh, Magherafelt, and after there was something about twilight, wilt thou ever? and ofttimes the beauty of poetry, so sad in its transient loveliness, had misted her eyes with silent tears for she felt that the years were slipping by for her, one by one, and but for that one shortcoming she knew she need fear no competition and that was an accident coming down Dalkey hill and she always tried to conceal it. (298)Joyces subtextual wordplays and rhymes are masterful in this extended sentence, one whose subject and rhythm correspond to her limping gait. Wilt, of course, also means To cause to become limp (OED, 3.2a), and plays off the sound (and a reordering of the first four letters) of the romantic twilight. The real versus ideal dilemma posed by Walsh receives reinforcemen t from the rhymes or half-rhymes throughout: real/ideal/tears/years/hill/conceal. The ideal is the sweeping language of the first half of the sentence, and the real is the awkward run-on phrasing of the remainder. As a synopsis for Gertys questioning of Bloom throughout the episode, her lofty and idealized self-indulgence also butts against the very real and hastily delivered admission of her one shortcoming. We now slightly recant our impression of Gerty and are made to group her as another of the novels many outsiders, a status that is difficult not to sentimentalize. The relative weight of her mysterious ailment is still too minimal compared to her superficial prose, however, to warrant our full sympathy. Nevertheless, the poetic, if hackneyed, language of Nausicaa does provide great relief from the previous oppressive atmosphere of The Cyclops and spurs an identification with Gerty away from which the reader reluctantly turns we both detest and delight in the liberal and s ensuous prose. Only later, when the familiarity of Blooms vulgarity becomes unbearable, does Joyce allow the reader any potential room to disavow his connection with Bloom and favor Gerty.But it is still not so easy to choose sides in Nausicaa. The recognition of his recent cuckolding impedes Blooms merriment in both his masturbatory and literary conquests and redeems him for the reader. However crass he may be, his bare, critical introspection is compensatory enough for the reader, who remains aware of the undercurrent of sexual anxiety in all of Blooms thoughts. He wonders about the coincidence between his stopped watch and that afternoons tryst: Funny my watch stopped at half past fourÃÆ',,-Was that just when he, she? O, he did. Into her. She did. Done (303). The fragmented sentences are typical of Blooms self-censorship of unpleasant issues, but his cry of O inverts the euphoric and orgasmic repetition of O during the fireworks: And then a rocket sprang and bang shot b lind blank and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O! O! (300) Bloom similarly negates the O, perhaps worth noting as Elizabethan allusion to the vagina, after he notes Gertys lameness: Tight boots? No. Shes lame! O! (301) Blooms causes for evasion from love are many; his interrupted scrawl in the sand of I. AM. A (312) can, in the context of the episode, gain some significance in the Latinate root of ama-, or love. Blooms diminished capacity for love finds its simile in the staying power of evanescent sand: Mr Bloom effaced the letters with his slow boot. Hopeless thing sand. Nothing grows in it. All fades. No fear of big vessels coming up here (312). The vessel is a symbolic constant throughout Ulysses for the womans body, and Blooms evasion from bodily intimacy throughout Nausicaa (where even writing fails him, unlike in previous erotic encounters) pivots around the centrality of the masculine gaze as a detached and alienated f orm of intercourse.Joyce abandons his subtle description of Gertys leg and exaggerates the episodes treatment of eyes and their spatially opposed purpose of assimilating external information while applying it internally, usually to self-centered use. Edys shortsighted or squinty eyes are brought up three times (285, 287, 295) as evidence for her jealousy, unattractiveness, and inability to project; conversely, Gertys beautiful eyes, given to equally beautiful projections, are praised as a charm few could resist (286). Even when she is seemingly left alone, Joyce makes it clear that her gaze is always reciprocated: Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in thought, gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a specimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see (285-286). Gertys receptive role as a magnified specimen confers on her a distorted sense of autoerotism (or in Gertys euphemized case, auto-emotion-ism) rooted in her eyes: Her very soul is in her eyes and she would give worlds to be in the privacy of her own familiar chamber where, giving way to tears, she could have a good cry and relieve her pentup feelings though not too much because she knew how to cry nicely in front of a mirror (288). Like Marthas malapropian dislike of that other world (63), Gertys worlds are a nexus of the public and private; nothing about Gertys internal world, not even her vision, is entirely self-directed (unlike Bloom who, at times, hardly exists outside his head). This doesnt detract from the potency of her eyes Blooms self-appraisal shows his insecurity in receiving the gaze: Saw something in me. Wonder whatÃÆ',,-Ought to attend to my appearance. Didnt let her see me in profile. Still, you never know. Pretty girls and ugly men marrying (302). In profile is Bloom hiding his Jewishness? That Gerty is the cyclopean Citizens granddaughter the photograph of grandpapa Giltraps lovely dog Garryowen (289) only heightens the irony that, even with her two perfect eyes, Gerty has little depth perception. Still, at times Gerty somehow knows details of Blooms life without seeing them, and at other times is completely oblivious. This polarity lies at the heart of her romanticization of their encounter, as she (and Joyce) places Bloom and herself into alternating categories of opposition.Gertys parallactic perceptions of Bloom are remarkable, often allowing for adjustment in a single phrase. She correctly identifies Bloom through his countenance as a foreigner, but is unable to determine whether he had an aquiline nose or a slightly retroussÃÆ',,ÃÆ'‚ˆ (293). If Bloom is hiding his profile for religious reasons, Gerty is certainly confused: Even if he was a protestant or methodist she could convert him easily if he truly loved her (293). Later, however, she gains petty satisfaction from the fact that Edy is out of contention for Blooms attention because of her outsider status, social or sexual the one supposed link, albeit tenuous, between Bloom and Gerty herself: ÃÆ',,-and they both knew that [Edy] was something aloof, apart, in another sphere, that she was not of them and never would be and there was somebody else too that knew it and saw it (297). The reader cycles between astonishment at Gertys sixth sense and contempt for her blind insensitivity. Just as she is referred to as a girlwoman and then as a womanly woman (293), Gerty amalgamates Blooms role as both the somewhat effete tragic hero in deep mourning (293) and the aggressive ÃÆ',,?bermensch: Then mayhap he would embrace her gently, like a real man, crushing her soft body to him, and love her, his ownest girlie, for herself alone (294). The dichotomy of gentleness and crushing is further stratified by the ambiguous sense of possession the phrases his ownest and for herself alone suggest Gertys conflicting desire for selfish subjugation. That she shares her name with Hamlets appetitive mother and has a languid queenly hauteur seems to cast Bloom in two roles, as both the cuckolded King Hamlet and the adulterous Claudius. Our perception of him is similarly divided, with sympathy for his failing marriage but disapproval for his seduction of a young girl.Joyce toys with these oppositions in the entracte between Gertys and Blooms narrative halves. The narration veers towards Blooms mind at first: A fair unsullied soul had called to him and, wretch that he was, how had he answered? An utter cad he had been! (300) Though in the third person, these sentences may very well be in Blooms head. But the authorial voice is again fractured: Should a girl tell? No, a thousand times no. That was their secret, only theirs (301). Perhaps Gerty is wondering if she should reveal her secret to anyone the girlish confirmation of only theirs validates this claim but the question may also be borne from Blooms sudden panic that he will be discovered. The perspectival splintering is not ex clusive to Gerty and Bloom. Gertys contention that she felt instinctively that he was like no-one else may be true in Blooms case, but her embellishment to fit her own selfish needs contrasts with Mollys generalized view of Bloom during his proposal: I thought as well him as another (643-644). Molly refuses to endow Bloom with the uniqueness she knows exists, but her motivation for accepting him makes her stubbornness more palatable and honest: yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is (643).Gertys sentimentally evasive reasons for accepting Blooms visual proposition are countered, as usual, by similar evasions on Blooms part, justifications that extend deep into taboo and both titillate and disturb the reader. Immediately after Bloom makes his obligatory comment of Poor girl! (301) as he does for Dignam and any other unfortunate creature, he allows his faÃÆ',,?ade to fall: Glad I didnt know it when she was on show. Hot little devil all th e same. I wouldnt mind (301). His thoughts then run the gamut from his generalizations of women to explicit sexuality to Molly all retreats from the fact that he just masturbated in the presence of a seventeen-year-old. Yet these are difficult passages for the reader to ignore. The graphic content that courses through the episode excites us as much as it does Bloom, and we find ways to separate ourselves from him. Joyce twice triangulates paragraphs of the sexual encounter, the temperance litany backdrop, and the children at play (292, 294) as a means of exposing evasion in its simplest terms in hopes that the reader will recognize similar escapism in himself.Ultimately, the motive behind evasion must remain somewhat unclear, at least for Bloom. When he thinks back on his decidedly evasive action from violence in Barney Kiernans, he reminds himself of the necessity for perspectival inclusion: Mistake to hit back. Or? No. Ought to go home and laugh at themselves. Always wa nt to be swilling in company. Afraid to be alone like a child of two. Suppose he hit me. Look at it other way round. Not so bad then. Perhaps not to hurt he meant. Three cheers for Israel. (311)Blooms mollification of the Citizens undoubtedly hostile remark may spring from either cowardice or his underlying sense of humanity, depending on how one takes it. And that parallactic means of interpretation is what Nausicaa requires not only for interpreting the text, but for interpreting our interpretation. We, after all, are the ultimate voyeurs in an episode of purely visual interaction. To commit our literary resources to uncovering the work alone, and not ourselves, is yet another instrument of evasion.