A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man covers the childhood and adolescence of Stephen Dedalus. We see
him, over the course of the novel, grow from a little boy to a young man of
eighteen who has decided to leave his country for Europe, in order to be an
artist. Perhaps the most famous aspect of A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man is Joyce's innovative use of stream of consciousness,
a style in which the author directly transcribes the thoughts and sensations
that go through a character's mind, rather than simply describing those
sensations from the external standpoint of an observer.
Joyce's use of stream of consciousness makes A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man a story of the
development of Stephen's mind. In the first chapter, the very young Stephen is
only capable of describing his world in simple words and phrases. The
sensations that he experiences are all jumbled together with a child's lack of
attention to cause and effect. Later, when Stephen is a teenager obsessed with
religion, he is able to think in a clearer, more adult manner. Paragraphs are
more logically ordered than in the opening sections of the novel, and thoughts
progress logically. Stephen's mind is more mature and he is now more coherently
aware of his surroundings. Nonetheless, he still trusts blindly in the church,
and his passionate emotions of guilt and religious ecstasy are so strong that
they get in the way of rational thought. It is only in the final chapter, when
Stephen is in the university, that he seems truly rational. By the end of the
novel, Joyce renders a portrait of a mind that has achieved emotional,
intellectual, and artistic adulthood.
The development of Stephen's consciousness in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is
particularly interesting because, insofar as Stephen is a portrait of Joyce
himself, Stephen's development gives us insight into the development of a
literary genius. Stephen's experiences hint at the influences that transformed
Joyce himself into the great writer he is considered today: Stephen's obsession
with language; his strained relations with religion, family, and culture; and
his dedication to forging an aesthetic of his own mirror the ways in which
Joyce related to the various tensions in his life during his formative years.
In the last chapter of the novel, we also learn that genius, though in many
ways a calling, also requires great work and considerable sacrifice. Watching
Stephen's daily struggle to puzzle out his aesthetic philosophy, we get a sense
of the great task that awaits him.
Brought up in a
devout Catholic family, Stephen initially ascribes to an absolute belief in the
morals of the church. As a teenager, this belief leads him to two opposite
extremes, both of which are harmful. At first, he falls into the extreme of
sin, repeatedly sleeping with prostitutes and deliberately turning his back on
religion. Though Stephen sins deliberately, he is always aware that he acts in
violation of the church's rules. Then, when Father Arnall's speech prompts him
to return to Catholicism, he bounces to the other extreme, becoming a perfect,
near fanatical model of religious devotion and obedience. Eventually, however,
Stephen realizes that both of these lifestyles—the completely sinful and the
completely devout—are extremes that have been false and harmful. He does not
want to lead a completely debauched life, but also rejects austere Catholicism
because he feels that it does not permit him the full experience of being
human. Stephen ultimately reaches a decision to embrace life and celebrate
humanity after seeing a young girl wading at a beach. To him, the girl is a
symbol of pure goodness and of life lived to the fullest.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man explores what it means
to become an artist. Stephen's decision at the end of the novel—to leave his
family and friends behind and go into exile in order to become an
artist—suggests that Joyce sees the artist as a necessarily isolated figure.
In his decision, Stephen turns his back on his community, refusing to accept
the constraints of political involvement, religious devotion, and family
commitment that the community places on its members. However, though the artist
is an isolated figure, Stephen's ultimate goal is to give a voice to the very
community that he is leaving. In the last few lines of the novel, Stephen
expresses his desire to "forge in the smithy of my soul the un-created
conscience of my race." He recognizes that his community will always be a
part of him, as it has created and shaped his identity. When he creatively
expresses his own ideas, he will also convey the voice of his entire community.
Even as Stephen turns his back on the traditional forms of participation and
membership in a community, he envisions his writing as a service to the
community.
Despite his desire to steer clear of politics, Stephen constantly
ponders Ireland's place in the world. He concludes that the Irish have always
been a subservient people, allowing outsiders to control them. In his
conversation with the dean of studies at the university, he realizes that even
the language of the Irish people really belongs to the English. Stephen's
perception of Ireland's subservience has two effects on his development as an
artist. First, it makes him determined to escape the bonds that his Irish
ancestors have accepted. As we see in his conversation with Davin, Stephen
feels an anxious need to emerge from his Irish heritage as his own person, free
from the shackles that have traditionally confined his country: "Do you
fancy I am going to pay in my own life and person debts they made?"
Second, Stephen's perception makes him determined to use his art to reclaim
autonomy for Ireland. Using the borrowed language of English, he plans to write
in a style that will be both autonomous from England and true to the Irish
people.
Stephen ultimately asserts his identity and freedom when he remarks,
“You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those
nets”. Thus, Stephen’s ultimate call to life and freedom, though prefigured in
the title of the novel and in his name as Stephen Dedalus, is realized through
the novel by attractions, experiences and repudiations. But to view A Portrait
only as a series of rejections and affirmations will be an incomplete reading.
As Hugh Kenner points out, country and church, though rejected by Stephen, go a
long way in contributing in his growth as an artist. Thus, whereas on one hand
Stephen’s individual final identity as an artist, as Dedalus, is at once
something which is constructed through a series of rejections and affirmations
as discussed above, at the same time, this identity of his as an artist and a
man free from the negativities of religion and nationality, synthesizes in it
the essence of the very experiences which Stephen comes to reject. If life in
its parts is negated, life in totality is embraced by Stephen at the end of the
Novel.
Reference : https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/portraitartist/themes/
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