The play Exiles has generally been considered as a male-oriented work. Clearly, the play is dominated by a male figure, Richard Rowan, who is Bertha`s husband and has male bonds. But in Exiles, as Bonnie Kime Scott suggests, "a female protagonist Bertha provides a sense of female relationships and female community." She can be differentiated from her oppressive husband who has a pressing desire to possess his wife. Bertha, like Gretta in "The Dead", is a representative of virtuous women. While Gretta is the first female that James Joyce represents as a positive character in his works, Bertha has a variety of positive interactions with characters of both sexes. Her virtue is emphasized again by her name. Bertha, as her name itself suggests, is the bright light which brings the surroundings, men or milieu, the light. Her naturalness, one of her many virtues, leads her to easy action. It allows Bertha to accept things in quietude and to speak openly while Robert Hand, who has loved her for a long time, fears to utter. Therefore, Bertha could be regarded as an embryo of feminist activities. And so Exiles is especially important in that it reveals the core of Joyce`s positive view of women. As this thesis suggests, I claim that Bertha is the most positive character that James Joyce has created and that Joyce himself has long been interested in women. As a result, Joyce is not a male-oriented writer or a misogynist but a true feminist who affirms equilibrium between the sexes.