A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Stephen Dedalus - Rebel Without a Cause?
His soul had arisen from the grave of boyhood, spurning her grave-clothes. Yes! Yes! Yes! He would create proudly out of the freedom and power of his soul, as the great artificer whose name he bore, a living thing, new and soaring and beautiful, impalpable, imperishable
Throughout A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man Stephen Dedalus is persistently portrayed as the outsider, apart from the society he and his family inhabit, connecting with no-one and seeking solitude and isolation at every turn. Does this self-imposed exile lead to or directly influence his artistic awakening or not? This essay will examine (both thematically and stylistically) Stephen's alienation from the traditional voices of authority in his life and explore how this impacts upon his budding artistic talent.
A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man was Joyce's first published novel, written in neutral Switzerland but published in New York in 1916. Europe was at war and Michael Collins had been taken prisoner during the Easter Rising in Dublin. This novel is therefore bound up with an Irish history rich in rebels and freedom fighters. A real history was raging in Joyce's homeland where the Fenians were fighting against English rule, the oppressive landlord system and eventually the Catholic church in hock to the English rulers. The novel, however, as the title suggests, is not a story of revolutionary politics but of the quiet but dogged rebellion of a young man in search of his artistic voice.
From the opening pages the reader realises that this is no traditional narrative. There is no safe 3rd person distance from the main protagonist, the reader never escapes S...
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...cape. As the Ovid quote at the start of the novel states it was Dedalus who...altered/improved the laws of nature. By the conclusion of chapter 5 therefore we see Stephen the creator who chooses exile rather than the daring Icarus-like youngster seeking escape but doomed to failure,
His soul had arisen from the grave of boyhood, spurning her grave-clothes. Yes! Yes! Yes! He would create proudly out of the freedom and power of his soul, as the great artificer whose name he bore, a living thing, new and soaring and beautiful, impalpable, imperishable (p.170)
Stephen's rejection of the environment that shaped him is now complete and his diary entries at the conclusion of the novel show a purposeful young artist seeking expression in Europe.
Reference:
Joyce, James. A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. Wordsworth Classics. Wordsworth Editions Limited 1992
The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce is widely recognized by New Critics as one of the greatest novels of its age for its aesthetic artistry. In the Portrait, a powerful autobiographical novel of bildungsroman, commonly known as a coming-of-age story, that follows the life of Irish protagonist Stephen Dedalus, Joyce portraits his momentous transition to adulthood as a passage of psychological struggle towards his ultimate philosophical awakening and his spiritual rebirth as an artist. Most visibly in Chapter Four of the novel, Stephen Dedalus, after the denial of his own priesthood, goes on to seek his artistic personality through his secluded journey amongst a myriad of natural elements. Dramatizing the Stephen’s progression towards his artistic revelation, Joyce deployed numerous image patterns that together insinuate the spiritual transformation of Stephen Dedalus into an “impalpable imperishable being” out of the earthly body of which he is composed of (Joyce 108). Specifically, Stephen’s intellectual transfiguration is largely connected with the symbolic connotations of the clouds depicted throughout his journey, which alludes to his transcending soul, wafting across the celestial heaven yet hovering intimately close to the earth that he belongs.
Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The Viking Press, New York: 1964.
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John A. Robertson’s article “Human Cloning and the Challenge of Regulation” raises three important reasons on why there shouldn’t be a ban on Human Cloning but that it should be regulated. Couples who are infertile might choose to clone one of the partners instead of using sperm, eggs, or embryo’s from anonymous donors. In conventional in vitro fertilization, doctors attempt to start with many ova, fertilize each with sperm and implant all of them in the woman's womb in the hope that one will result in pregnancy. (Robertson) But some women can only supply a single egg. Through the use of embryo cloning, that egg might be divisible into, say 8 zygotes for implanting. The chance of those women becoming pregnant would be much greater. (Kassirer) Secondly, it would benefit a couple at high risk of having offspring with a genetic disease choose weather to risk the birth of an affected child. (Robertson) Parents who are known to be at risk of passing a genetic defect to a child could make use of cloning. A fertilized ovum could be cloned, and the duplicate tested for the disease or disorder. If the clone were free of genetic defects, then the other clone would be as well. Then this could be implanted in the woman and allowed to mature to term. (Heyd) Thirdly, it would be used to obtain tissue or organs...
James Joyce's fragment of a novel, Stephen Hero, leaves the reader little room to interpret the text for themselves. The work lacks the narrative distance that Joyce achieves in his later works. Dubliners, a work Joyce was writing concurrently, seemingly employs a drastically different voice. A voice which leaves the reader room to make judgments of their own. Yet it is curious that Joyce could produce these two works at the same time, one that controls the reader so directly, telling not showing , while the other, Dubliners, seems to give the reader the power of final interpretation over the characters it portrays.
The women which Stephen comes across in his journey in becoming an artist define him and change him by nurturing him, fascinating him, and inspiring him. Stephen was forever changed by his mother, the Virgin Mary, Eileen, the prostitute, and the seaside woman. The object of the artist is to create the object of the beautiful, I argue that it was the beauty in the women of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which created the artist in the end.
Religion is an important and recurring theme in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Through his experiences with religion, Stephen Dedalus both matures and progressively becomes more individualistic as he grows. Though reared in a Catholic school, several key events lead Stephen to throw off the yoke of conformity and choose his own life, the life of an artist.
As James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man unfolds, the central theme of isolation and rejection becomes evident. From birth to adolescence, the protagonist of the story, Stephen Dedalus, responds to his experiences throughout life with actions of rejection and isolation. He rebels against his environment and isolates himself in schoolwork, family, religion and his art, successively. James Joyce uses Stephen Dedalus' responses of isolation and rejection to illustrate the journey that the artist must take to achieve adulthood.
The need for the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus’ artistic expression is emphasized in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Joyce juxtaposes Stephen Daedalus’ creativity with a commitment to his catholic religion while on his odyssey to find his identity. Which calling will he answer to—artist or priest? The text follows the protagonist through both his positive and negative experiences with priests and his early revelations of artistic talents. Stephen is surrounded by financial, political, and religious tensions in his family and reveals to Stephen how paralyzing these influences can be on one’s life. Joyce conveys the artistic manifestation that seems inherent in Stephen throughout his journey, whereas, portrays Stephen in a constant battle to accept the priesthood while often in doubt about the importance of religion. Joyce delivers a narrative of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man that believes that art is higher than religion. This idea embodies the description in Stephen’s love for art versus his apprehension for theology points to a plot that hints that art is better than religion.
Aesthetics is the philosophy of art. By appreciating the value of aesthetics, one can comprehend the meaning of the abstract notion of beauty. In James Joyce’s novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus’ perception of aesthetics is a key component in the main character’s pursuit of individuality and purpose. Through the use of literary techniques such as diction and tone, Joyce conveys the protagonist’s aesthetic development. This artistic growth, paralleled throughout the novel’s external structure with Dedalus’ coming of age, illustrates the life, purpose and aesthetic ambition of an artist: “To discover the mode of life or of art whereby the spirit can express itself in unfettered freedom” (Joyce 231).
James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man presents an account of the formative years of aspiring author Stephen Dedalus. "The very title of the novel suggests that Joyce's focus throughout will be those aspects of the young man's life that are key to his artistic development" (Drew 276). Each event in Stephen's life -- from the opening story of the moocow to his experiences with religion and the university -- contributes to his growth as an artist. Central to the experiences of Stephen's life are, of course, the people with whom he interacts, and of primary importance among these people are women, who, as his story progresses, prove to be a driving force behind Stephen's art.
The novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is an autobiography of James Joyce who delivers the influential aspects in his life and his artistic development to the reader through the eyes of the fictional character of Stephen Dedalus. In the novel, Stephen's journey to maturation and to become an artist is influenced by his religion, sexuality and education. Yet, Stephen is able to overcome the obstacles result from these aspects and experience his life to its fullest.