One of James Joyce`s many alter egos, James Duffy who won`t love anyone except himself is a frustrated superman. As he is incapable of reciprocating the human affection Emily Sinico offers him, Duffy is rendered a figure of despair. "A painful Case," Emily Sinico seems to offer him a chance to regain his lost hope and life`s un-enjoyed vitality. Duffy, however, fails to answer her "offer of erotic love" call. He is unable to regard her as a positive woman. Duffy in this episode can be said to have a human desire, sensuality, and love and the apple expresses his relation to them "life`s feast." As we can see, however, the apple is over-ripe and forgotten under the lid of the desk. The over-ripe apple which is on the verge of decay represents Duffy`s corrupting his life. "Gnawing the rectitude of his life," he feels that "no one wanted him" and he is really an excluded remainder, outcast and exile from the world of life. He is in a sense Narcissus who loves only himself. Although he wants to be a Nietzschean "Ubermensch" (Superman) by refusing the erotic love and being "an angelical stature," he ironically becomes a frustrated superman in the "love`s absence" story by refusing the love.