s” which would hold him back. He feels as though he is being reborn into adulthood and has finally reached that point in his life where he is capable of fulfilling his calling in life. This calling that he feels is unlike anything that has ever spoken to him before and it invokes in him an incredible freedom of spirit. As his mind, body and soul are still soaring from this “ecstasy of flight”, he repeatedly mentions that he is alone. He is happy and free, but he is alone. Then he sees her. “A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird.” (p.171). The imagery in the following passage and the particular words Joyce uses to present that imagery are very meaningful. The girl is the perfect balance between Stephen’s two extreme ideas of women. “Her thighs, fuller and softhued as ivory, were bared almost to the hip…”(p.171). She is “delicate” and “pure” and she has all the qualities of innocent virginity, but at the same time, she exposes her flesh in a sensual manner and exhibits a “mortal beauty”. Stephen’s comparison of her to a crane and a dove shows an important relationship between the girl and Stephen’s freedom. She was neither virgin nor whore. She was attainable. “To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life! A wild angel had appeared to him…” (p.172). She certainly seemed divine to Stephen who associated her presence to the calling of a life of art. He knows immediately that if he had been destined to a life in the church that this would have been the kind of calling he should have experienced. Instead he realizes that he cannot become a priest because he is unable to adhere to those physiological restrictions demanding of the profession. He has also dis...
