ader is convinced of Maria's inexorable destiny.If by the addition of the preceding characteristics we are made to feel Maria's predestination of ordination, we are made to feel the same by a similar process of charactoristical subtraction. Throughout the story Maria is depicted as a woman who somewhat hesitantly embraces the sort of asexuality required of a nun, hence a sort of subtraction of her sexuality. Physically, we see this very clearly: Maria's body is over and again drawn as something insubstantial, almost non-existent. The details that "Maria was a very, very small person." (Joyce, 95), had a "minute" (Joyce, 97) and "diminutive body" (Joyce, 97) all take away from her any kind of corporal sexuality or physical desirability.The evidence of Maria's tendency to assume a certain asexuality mounts as we turn to the psychological. In the first of two different instances where Maria's destiny is invoked by the traditional Halloween gaming, we are confronted with this: "Lizzie Fleming said Maria was sure to get the ring and, though Fleming had said that for so many Hallow Eves, Maria had to laugh and say she didn't want any ring or man either; and when she laughed her grey-green eyes sparkled with disappointed shyness and the tip of her nose nearly met her chin." (Joyce, 97) In her display of "disappointed shyness" we can sense that somewhere behind Maria's social facade are the remnants of a libido, however at this point they are only remnants. The interaction Maria has with the "colonel-looking gentleman" (Joyce, 98) on the bus en-route to the Halloween gathering is later recollected by her as a rather confusing experience. Worthy of note is the fact that it is the gentleman who ends up taking the blame for the lost plumcake. Symbolically, Maria sees that her selfless act is only impeded by the ejaculation of a male figure. Near the ending, Maria omits the second verse of I Dreamt that I Dwelt wherein there is expressed a...
