Punctuations of the Virtual: Spectating Sex and Disability in Joyce's "Nausicaa"

Reading the narrative role of disability in the "Nausicaa" episode of Joyce's Ulysses through Roland Barthes's notion in Camera Lucida of the punctum, this essay repositions the disability of Gerty MacDowell both as a dynamic feature of the narrative and as evidence of her considerable agency within the chapter. Joyce's depiction of Gerty's disability shows that, far from passive and desexualized, she is a model for the structure of the episode generally, especially its use of juxtaposition and disruption. Reappraising Gerty's disability, then, reveals not only greater depth in her character but greater complexity and nuance in the episode as well.