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Given how infrequently she appears throughout the novel, Emma Clery functions more as a character in Stephen’s mind than she does in the action of the narrative itself. She very quickly becomes Stephen’s “beloved,” capturing his attention at a party he attends in Chapter II. Emma simply walks with him to the tram and speaks with him on their way home, but this minor interaction is enough to lead him down a path of intense desire and admiration. Rather than turning this powerful response into action, however, he uses it as motivation for art. Stephen’s first poem, “To E___C___,” is written to Emma and draws inspiration from Byron’s Romantic-era works. She becomes a canvas onto which Stephen can project his ideas about love, passion, beauty, and the sublime. Notably, Stephen does not view all women in the same way he views Emma. She symbolizes one end of a spectrum of femininity, appearing pure and unapproachable, while women like the prostitutes he visits are hypersexual and commonplace in his eyes.
His perception of these two extremes is something that he continues to grapple with throughout his adolescence, and Emma still occupies his mind ten years after their first meeting. Stephen catches sight of her at the university, a moment which, for the reader, emphasizes her identity as an average girl. She stands among a group of friends, listening to their casual conversation on the steps of the library. Besides revealing that she once flirted with a priest, however, Joyce continues to withhold specific details about Emma’s character in order to reinforce her role as an artistic muse for Stephen. The emotions he feels toward Emma are more varied now that he is older, but even after becoming frustrated with her, he still elevates her to a divine status through his poetry. She is not a girl but rather “a figure of the womanhood of her country” in this context, signifying that Stephen has little interest in who she is as an individual. He values her for the feelings and ideas that she represents in his mind.
