A Breathing Advertisement Ari Mostow College

The “Nausikaa” episode of James Joyce’s Ulysses illuminates the complex dynamics of Dublin’s socioeconomic sex/gender system, in which women and men perform gender differently as the result of invisible yet pervasive social forces surrounding sex. The chapter applies a vivisective lancet to expose a system of commoditization that shapes Gerty, in which women serve as material “goods” in a marriage market, men become “consumers,” and relations between genders are shaped by the same forces of an economic marketplace. In “Nausikaa,” Gerty’s dependence on advertising leads her to assume the form of a personified advertisement, dependent on the male gaze; and her performance of femininity serves to enact her purpose of appealing to the male “consumers.” While Gerty’s actions shed light on the sex/gender system, the chapter also hints at the larger system that surrounds and influences her. Insinuations of unequal, advantageous treatment bestowed on men show up, for instance, in Gerty’s musings that “[Reggy Wylie’s] father [keeps] him in the evenings studying hard,” as he is “going to Trinity college to study for a doctor” (349). The subtle societal encouragement of men to achieve higher ambitions than women presents itself even more...