Monday, March 24, 2008

James Joyce Critical Essay


In the novel, A Portrait Of the Artists As A Young Man, by James Joyce, Stephen Deadlus the main protagonist goes on a journey of discovering who he truly is, what religion really means to him, and what impact females have on him throughout his life. During this expedition Stephen struggles to hold on to things, people and ideas that are important to his past experiences while seeming to continuously prevail at keeping him confused and frustrated throughout the novel.

Stephen has evolved as a character steadily throughout the course of the novel. Dealing with and identifying self discovery for Stephen is a very hard concept for him to capture. Which leads to him getting taken advantage of because he is seen as a weak person unsure of his own intellectual capacity, moral values, and ethics. For example in the novel Stephen gets bullied by the boys at the private all boys school he attends simply because they see him as a prime target for their mockery.


Tell us Deadlus, do you kiss your mother every night before you go to bed?’ Stephen answered: ‘ I do.’ Wells turned to the other fellows and said: ‘O, I say, here’s a fellow says he kisses his mother every night before he goes to bed.’ The other fellows stopped their game and turned around, laughing. Stephen blushed under their eyes and said; ‘I do not. Wells Said here’s a fellow who says he doesn’t kiss his mother before he goes to bed. They all laugh again. Stephen tried
to laugh with them he felt his whole body hot and confused in a moment. What was the right answer to the question? He had given two and still wells laughed. But wells must know the right answer for he was in third of grammar. He tried to think of wells mother but he did not dare raise his eyes to Well’s face. It was Wells who had shouldered him into the square ditch the day before because he would not swap his little snuffbox for Wells’ seasoned hacking chestnuts, the conqueror of forty. It was a mean thing to do; all the fellows said it was. And how cold and slimy the water had been! And a fellow had once seen a big rat jump plop into the scum.(pg 26-27)


In the beginning of this passage Stephen is being teased by his schoolmates not because he kisses or doesn’t kiss his mother but simply because he falls into Wells trap of deceitful mockery which is the meaning and purpose that Joyce is portraying in this excerpt. Stephen is very unaware of the situation surrounding him as far as Wells mockery toward him because Stephen is inexperienced at this point and time in the novel because this is the second incident that Stephen Let Wells get him into., Most would have learned from the first incident but Joyce makes it a point to emphasizes this in an attempt to make the reader question Stephens purpose and meaning, or maybe a deeper more emotional reason. Perhaps Joyce was trying to bring the theory across of Stephen’s inability to be defensive because he is accustomed to being kindhearted like a female which would make sense because he is very close to his mother while his father is not someone he’s been close to throughout his life.


Religion is a testy subject to Stephen throughout this novel. He struggles with the
ideals of what he truly thinks about religion due to the influences that he has had in his past and the present. Stephen currently goes to a catholic school called the university which is an all boys catholic school. Stephen has a stronger connection with his mother than he does with his father so he tends to lean toward the feminists ways as an unconscious instinct simply because he has a strong bond with his mother and she has rubbed off on him. Joyce exemplifies the fact that Stephen is somewhat forced to be in a situation away from home, which means away from his safety of the womb, his mother which leads to Stephen’s confusion with religion.


On the way home Uncle Charles would often pay a visit to the chapel and, as the font was above Stephen’s reach, the old man would dip his hand and the sprinkle the water briskly about Stephen’s clothes and open the floor of the porch. While he played he knelt on his red handkerchief and read above his breath from the thumb blackened prayer book wherein catchwords were printed t the foot at every page. He often wondered what his granduncle prayed for so seriously. Perhaps he prayed for the souls in purgatory of for the grace of a happy death or perhaps he prayed that God might send him back a part of the big fortune he had squandered in cork. (pg66)


Here we see Stephen’s beginning struggles with understanding religion. Stephen initially questions everything that his great uncle is doing. What he prayed for, why he prayed so seriously. With all these questions Stephen never asked his uncle about the
whole praying process. Joyce created meaning through this passage by showing that Stephens hesitations with opening up around a male which he is somewhat intimidated by. In this other passage the reader is able to see a different side of Stephen. An emotional side that really let the reader see the inner side of Stephen.


Women play a big Role in this novel to Stephen . They are his safety while at the same time the thing the he is deathly afraid of. In this passage the reader is able to see a different side of Stephen. An emotional side that really lets the reader get insight into how Stephen really feel on an emotional level with women.


Aubrey and Stephan had a common milkman and often drove out to the milk car to Carrickmines where the cows were at grass. While the men were milking the boys would take turns in riding the tractable mare round the field. But when Autumn came the cows were driven home from the grass: and the first sight of the filthy cow yard at scrapbook with its foul green puddles and clots of liquid dung and steaming bran troughs sickened Stephen’s heart. The cattle which had seemed so beautiful in the country on sunny days revolted him and he could not even look at the milk they yielded. (pg 68)


In this passage the cows and the cow yard represents something deeper than just an innocent childhood experience. The cows, the yard and the milk could be looked at as the cows being the mothers human mothers nursing their milk away in this case for the
benefit of society, not necessarily their babies in this instance. Stephen’s initial views of the cows and their living environment was a very happy feeling for him he enjoyed coming down to the yard to play in the grass and watch the cows be milked with no regrets or thoughts of disgust. But now as and older more experienced teenager Stephen gets disgusted because during the fall when it is time for the cows to be put away for the
winter in their barns. He get discussed because he is accustomed to the cows or the mothers grazing in a beautiful yard that he fell in love with as a young boy but now with everything looking winter eaten with dead grass, green puddles of who knows what, and puddles of decaying dung everything revolted Stephen by making him think that something as precious as cows/ mothers or women were living in that area and after there gone it looked like a mess it mad him heartsick to see women this way winter in their barns. He get discussed because he is accustomed to the cows or the mothers grazing in a beautiful yard that he fell in love with as a young boy but now with everything looking winter eaten with dead grass, green puddles of who knows what, and puddles of decaying dung everything revolted Stephen by making him think that something as precious as cows/ mothers or women were living in that area and after there gone it looked like a mess it mad him heartsick to see women this way.

Stephen does not look to fondly toward his father. Stephen is put into this situation because his father isn’t really there for him like his mother in the sympathetic caring, devoted way that mothers are toward their children. It is ironic though because here we see a bond between Stephen and his father which lets the reader see that Stephen
has had a male in his life.


Stephen walked on at his father’s side, listening to stories he had heard before, hearing again the names of the scattered and dead revelers who had been the companions of his fathers youth. And a faint sickness sighed in his heart. He recalled his own equivocal position in belvedere, a free boy, a leader afraid of his own authority, proud sensitive and suspicious, battling against the squalor of his life and against the riot of his mind. The letters cut in the strained wood of the desk stared upon him making his bodily weakness and fertile enthusiasms and making him loath himself for his own mad and filthy orgies. The spittle in his throat grew bitter and foul to swallow and the faint sickness claimed to his brain so that for a moment he closed his eyes and walked on in darkness. He could still hear his father’s voice. When you kick out of yourself, Stephen- as I daresay you will one of these days-remember, whatever you do, to mix with gentlemen. When I was a young fellow I tell you I enjoyed myself. I mixed with fine decent fellows. Everyone of us could do something. One fellow had a good voice, another fellow was a great actor, another fellow could sing a good comic song, another was a good oarsman or a good racket player, another could tell a good story and so on. We kept the ball rolling anyhow and enjoyed ourselves and saw a bit of life and we were none the worse of it either. But we were all gentleman, Stephen, at least I hope we were- and bloody good honest Irishman too. that’s the kind of fellow I want you to associate with. Fellows of the right kidney. I’m talking to you as a
friend, Stephen. I don’t believe in playing a stern father. I don’t believe a son should be afraid of his father. No I treat you as your grandfather treated me when I was a young chap. We were more like brothers than father and son. I’ll never forget the first day he caught me smoking. I was standing at the end of south terrace one day with some manens like myself and sure we thought we were grand fellows because we had pipes stuck in the corner of our mouths. Suddenly the Governor passed. He didn’t say a word or stop even. But the next day Sunday, we were out for a walk together and when we were coming home he took out his cigar case and said: ‘By the by Simon, I didn’t know u smoked’: or something like that. Of course I tried to carry it off as best I could. If you want a good smoke, he said, try one of these cigars. An American captain mad me a present of them last night in Queenstown. Stephen heard his fathers voice break into a laugh which was almost a sob. (pg90-91)


We learn a lot about the relationship between Stephen and his father. In reading this conversation between Stephen and his father the reader get the idea that everything is absolutely fine between Stephen and his father but in deeply analyzing this passage you can see there a sense that Stephen is holding himself back that he doesn’t enjoy having this time to spend with his dad in sharing this conversation but at the same time Stephen has his guard up in an attempt to avoid getting hurt. On the other hand Stephens father seem like a very intellectual man which I’m sure he is but there is a feeling with the father that he feels as if he has to prove himself to ultimately be accepted by his son an exampleof this being on pg 90 where the father talks directly to Stephen

But we were all gentleman, Stephen, at least I hope we were- and bloody good honest Irishman too. that’s the kind of fellow I want you to associate with. Fellows of the right kidney. I’m talking to you as a friend, Stephen. I don’t believe in playing a stern father. I don’t believe a son should be afraid of his father. No I treat you as your grandfather treated me when I was a young chap. We were more like brothers than father and son. (pg 90)

This is a really nice thought of Stephens father to express to Stephen but it shows the reader immediately that the bond between the two is no strong its also displays a sense of disparity when Stephens father states to him that he wants to treat his son as a best friend no as a strict parent, when considering that there is a fine line between a friend and a parent and a parent verses a strict parent.

In conclusion throughout this novel A Portrait of the Artists as A Young Man, by James Joyce, the main protagonists Stephen Deadlus does indeed go on a journey of discovery, discovery of who he is, what life really means to him, and how females impact him in his life. Throughout this paper those issues have been addressed and will remain to an extent an unsolved mystery only known through the eyes of the beholder James Joyce.

1 comment:

Danielle S. 5 said...

I choose this essay as my on demand piece of literature because this essay had a strick time restriction on it and very specific requirements compared to the rest of the essays. This was a very demanding essay.