A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man centers on the childhood of Stephen Dedalus, the youngest of many siblings in a catholic family. Despite being a poor family, Stephen's father sends him to a boarding school where Stephen is picked on by the children. However as time progresses at the school, Stephen begins to fit in with the children. However, his family is faced with more financial issues and is forced to move Stephen to another school. Stephen begins to burgeon as a writer at the school, and wins an award and money for some of his writings. After throwing a party for his family, Stephen decides to go for a walk around the city. He has his first sexual encounter the night of the party with a prostitute. Stephen begins seeing prostitutes more regularly and it begins to become a problem. Stephen falls into moral deprivation. However he soon becomes guilt ridden. Stephen's guilt grows, and after an especially powerful weekend, in which a guest priest from his old school gives a sermon on hell, Stephen devotes his life to that of piety and righteousness. He excels at this new life style and even is recommended by the school priest to seminary. However Stephen contemplates this life-style and after watching a young girl on a beach, he decides that it isn't a bad thing to love. Upon going to college, Stephen devotes his life to his writing and becoming as open minded that he can.
A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man's theme is as follows: freeing oneself from the constraints of religion. In simpler terms, the development of your own values and morals.
A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man is written with a serious and philosophical tone. In one scene, Stephen sits in his classroom, contemplating his place in the universe. "He opened the geography to study the lesson: but he could not learn the names of places in America. Still they were all different places that had those different names. They were all in different countries and the countries were in continents and the continents were in the world and the world was in the universe." In another scene Stephen thinks of death. Finally, Stephen is often pouring out his heart and is often very guilt ridden, which shows the tone of the novel to be very serious.
James Joyce employs several metaphors throughout his novel to help support his theme. "His throat ached with a desire to cry aloud, the cry of a hawk or eagle on high, to cry piercingly of his deliverance to the winds. This was the call of life to his soul not the dull gross voice of the world of duties and despair, not the inhuman voice that had called him to the pale service of the altar." This quote comes at a pivotal moment in the novel, when Stephen is looking inward and deciding how to live his life. Symbols play a role in the them of the novel, and Joyce uses a girl named Emma to show the change in the thought pattern of Stephen. At the beginning of the novel, Stephen adores Emma, and even maybe worships her a little. However at the end of the novel, after Stephen discovers who he is and what he should do, he realizes that Emma was just an ordinary women. Joyce also uses syntax. Throughout the novel, the syntax evolves as Stephen evolves. The diction starts childish and hard to follow, but as Stephen matures, so does his thought pattern. This helps to parallel the changes in the character of Stephen.
Despite his many obstacles and changes, Stephen seems like a character who has remained true to his original values, bad or good.
ReplyDeleteWas his change of heart only due to the challenges he faced or could he have also discovered a new part of life that included loving and living to the fullest in another way?
-Kelly Brickey, Period 3
I guess the summary wasn't clear enough, but Stephen at the end of the novel has an epiphany and he changes the views that he held in the rest of the novel completely. At the end of the novel he embraces love and life, rather than abhorring it, something that his earlier character did. The whole novel is him trying to unshackle that moral restraint. That's the main antagonist, that eating and restrictive idea of moral absolutes that his catholic upbringing gives him. Emma is a good example of his change in attitude and thought. For the whole novel till the end, Stephen holds Emma to a higher level then himself. Almost a kind of Mary figure from the bible. He believes her to be the apotheosis of love and beauty. However this isn't so and he doesn't realize this till the end of the novel. At the end he meets her for the first time since his childhood, and it is revealed that she is an ordinary girl.
ReplyDeleteNicholas Joshua Lycan I
In the summary, Stephen gives into his sexual desires and later realizes his mistake and lives in piety and righteousness. But then later, he says it's fine to love.
ReplyDeleteWould you consider Stephen as a hypocrite? Why did his mind fluctuate from time to time?
As the character progresses through life, his values changed to suit. He returned, but was not always faithful to his original beliefs.
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