In this chapter, there is a strong theme of irony in which Joyce uses to portray Gerty MacDowell. The irony in Gerty MacDowell is that she is portrayed as an innocent girl whose “curiosity [was] like a nun…or a girl with glasses [that had] the cry of a young girl’s love” (Ep. 13. 776-7; 735), who also desired to know if Bloom “was a married man or a widower who had lost his wife…[in] some tragedy (Ep. 13. 657).” Joyce used the words “like a nun” to represent Gerty’s purity; therefore, she is expected to be scrupulous, but because she has thoughts about Bloom’s sex life, she is tainted with the sin of lust which may lead her in fornication. During the firework show, Gerty “went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look
