"She's Not There"

Who's Stephen so in love with?

Not Eileen, right? He recalls the day "he and Eileen had stood looking into the hotel grounds," and seems to compare her intentions to those of the new, anonymous girl. Even Stephen's identity seems to dissolve somewhat in the preceding paragraphs. During the Mabel Hunter scene, he becomes "the boy" who "mauled the edges of the paper." His adolescent obsession becomes clear, but the identity of the adolescent does not.

We have seen this before in Dubliners, so I wonder if the same readings could apply here. Does Stephen's angst depersonalize him? Why? Is it simply the truth of every Irish boy? I think that lends itself to the confusing she, identified in a note as Emma. Why does the story not name her until later? Her identity must not matter to Stephen, remaining instead excluded from his consciousness  and thus does not appear in the narration. That explains, along with his fondness for Byron, Stephen's belief "he had heard their tale before," his romanticization of the tram ride as a long fated meeting. It heightens, too, his eventual disappointment when "he tore his ticket into shreds."

For Stephen sexuality means maturity, the total conviction that "weakness and timidity and inexperience would fall from him in that magic moment." Yet, his moments of flirtation are difficult to interpret, because the events themselves overlap with his romantic imaginations, like those of Mercedes.  Oddly, the section focuses on two themes-sexuality and time. How does time progress so rapidly and inconsistently and why does Stephen's perception of sexuality matter so much to it? Joyce's association of the two seems to heighten the importance of sexuality, as both a political and personal issue. Does it deserve such emphasis? Is that even occurring here? Or is mine a misguided adolescent read?