The color blue appears quite frequently in this chapter, but most prominently in its association with Gerty. We see the most concentrated mentions of the color in the early part of the chapter when both Gerty’s physical features and clothing are discussed by the unnamed narrator. Her eyes are described as\u00a0“the bluest Irish blue” (Joyce 13.108), and her clothing is similarly all\u00a0shades of blue, but perhaps the most interesting is that “[Gerty] was wearing the blue for luck” (Joyce 13.179) in the hopes of attracting the gaze of her interest, Reggy. It is this instance in which blue becomes most tied to her femininity and sexuality, and it is especially significant in relation to this episode’s theme of comfort, care, and refuge. A cursory Google search revealed that the color blue is always linked to tranquility, stress reduction, and calmness, which is what Bloom ultimately receives from his interaction with Gerty. These mentions of blue are most frequently associated with her eyes, her feminine clothing, or her tears, which we are told she practices by “cry[ing] nicely before the mirror” (Joyce 13); therefore blue becomes linked to a kind of performative, helpless femininity that seems to call to Bloom.\u00a0This reveals that\u00a0the color blue in this episode seems to be interestingly positioned\u00a0as a\u00a0calming influence to Bloom through\u00a0its role in creating\u00a0Gerty’s gentle sexuality and reciprocated interest, which is ultimately what Bloom derives the most comfort and relaxation from.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The color blue appears quite frequently in this chapter, but most prominently in its association with Gerty. We see the most concentrated mentions of the color in the early part of the chapter when both Gerty’s physical features and clothing are discussed by the unnamed narrator. Her eyes are described as\u00a0“the bluest Irish blue” (Joyce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}