Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man Essay

I found the fresh Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man really hard to read at first. and could do really small sense of it. After making some background research I have some to understand some of the motivations of Joyce. from which it seems that the trouble was non due to any shortcoming on my portion. because I know that that even the most sympathetic critics have faced the same troubles. Joyce does non mean to offer a conventional narrative. Indeed his motivation is to deconstruct convention.

The supporter of the novel is described as releasing all signifiers of convention. in his attempt to hammer for himself a new being in the capacity of a true creative person. But Joyce does non desire to offer this subject in the conventional manner either. Not merely the substance. but the agencies and the linguistic communication must besides be suffused by the same subject. In its attempt non to depend on any cultural norms. it employs the method of “stream of consciousness” . This is the technique where natural consciousness of idea is seen as the footing for truth. and it is meant that these thought forms be transposed straight onto the page.

It is non to consequence pragmatism. as might be thought at first manus. Realism is art is a really witting and ciphering manner. The implicit in doctrine is better described as existential philosophy. It recalls the experiential philosopher Jean Paul Sartre’s epithet “existence precedes essence” ( 22 ) . The existential philosophers aim to understand pure being. which is yet without kernel. or signifier. It describes precisely the transitions in the Portrait which employ the watercourse of consciousness method. From this point of position I found that a 2nd reading was much easier. merely because I was more cognizant of the motives of the author.

Another manner which comes to mind is modernism. T. S. Eliot is said to be the provoker of modernism with his 1922 verse form “The Wasteland” . This verse form presents us with fragments from the literary cultural tradition of the West. but in a hit-or-miss manner. without any looking coherency. as proclaimed in the verse form itself. “These fragments I have shored against my ruins” ( Eliot 69 ) . Eliot himself admitted that he wrote the verse form as a reaction to calamity of the Great War. and tried to convey its impact on the Western mind in general.

He believed that conventional art signifiers had become meaningless in “the huge view of futility and lawlessness which is modern-day history” ( qtd. in Sigg 182 ) . The modernist genre that sprung from this verse form can be said to be characterized by futility. and the hunt for nonnatural significance. Despite assorted points of similarity is it incorrect classify Joyce as a modernist. Not merely does the Portrait appears good before the publication of “The Wasteland” . it is besides composed good before the oncoming of the Great War. and hence can non hold been motivated in precisely the same manner.

Neither is it fragmental and incoherent in the manner Eliot’s verse form is. It is framed by autobiography. and hence possesses overall coherency. Eliot’s is a despairing call of futility. The supporter of Joyce besides comes across the futility of all conventional norms. but in the terminal the novel is non characterized simply by desperation. The supporter detecting himself as an creative person represents hope in the terminal. The fresh describes the several phases by which it protagonist Stephen Dedalus discovers himself as an creative person.

In the procedure he takes safety in the conventional individualities provided by society in the assorted phases of his turning up. But Stephen is meant for illustriousness. and the conventional individualities are merely safeties for averageness. and this is what he discovers clip and clip once more. The transiton from one phase to the following is marked by epiphanies – sudden turns of realisation that transform the interior ego. Apart from the many minor epiphanies that accompany the turning immature adult male. there are two major such occasions.

The first is his find of conventional religion. The 2nd occurs when he comes to recognize that the Church is a confining influence. and that he must get away if he is to show himself as an creative person. It occurs when he must do a pick between preparation to be a Catholic priest. or to come in the secular sphere of university. He opts for the 2nd pick. It is a major determination. but does non yet entail that he is free to go an creative person. University opens up to him a diverse array of political orientations.

Stephen comes to recognize that none of the thoughts that academia has to offer are able to turn to his interior yearning towards creativeness. His end. as he expresses at the very terminal of the novel. is to “to forge in the forge of [ his ] psyche the uncreated scruples of [ his ] race” ( 276 ) . His concluding realisation is that the conventional manner of Irish being is missing in scruples. And as an creative person he has understood his function as to do up for this cardinal deficiency. It is a function of epic proportions. and which merely the creative person is able to set about.

So the creativeness which Stephen intends in non mere self-expression. it is towards making a scruples for his race. There are many occasions while he is turning up in Dublin when he comes to recognize that there is something basically missing in what society has to offer him. In school it appears as if the grasp of his equals is the highest end. and he is in awe of the toughs of the schoolroom who command attending. On one juncture he is dealt with a wicker from a instructor which he didn’t truly merit.

He classmates challenge him to take action. and to describe the instructor to the schoolmaster. Up to this point he seems unable to stand up for himself. yet he takes on the challenge of his equals to travel up to the headmaster’s room all entirely. and puts his instance squarely. To his equals he is instant heroes. and they hoist him up in the air together. The dramatic facet of this incident is that the glorification does non register with Stephen. Even while he is being hoisted. he wants to get away their clasp. and when the cheers have died down he feels himself to be an foreigner merely as earlier.

On the juncture when he is first allowed to go to Christmas dinner with the grownups. he observes a barbarous statement taking topographic point with political relations and faith mixed in. It centers on the Catholic Church’s demonizing of Charles Stuart Parnell. who had led the motion Irish independency from the British. Parnell’s lucks reversed when it was found out that he was involved in an matter with a married adult females. which was considered profanation in the purely Catholic society that Ireland was. In the statement Stephen’s aunt is on the side of spiritual authorization. while Stephens’s male parent and the foreigner Mr.

Casey argue for political relations. However small Stephen understands of this statement. if gives him a foretaste of corruptness in high topographic points. But more than this he comes to recognize superficiality and crispness of household life that can be unsettled by inexpensive spiritual and political talk. It marks the beginning of Stephen’s traveling off from household and tradition. He comes to recognize subsequently on that his male parent is wholly unconnected to modern life. and simply engages in nostalgia. inebriation and shallowness. Stephen abdicating of his household is the first measure towards the rejection of convention as a whole.

As be becomes more anomic from his household he starts to see cocottes. and in general gives himself up to a life of secret wickedness. even though he is wracked by guilt interior. Another minute of epiphany takes topographic point when he is overcome by a discourse delivered by the college curate. In the interim he had become queerly careworn towards the Virgin Mary. and when the curate delivers fiery and in writing histories of red region and damnation. Stephen is truly terrified from the deepness of his psyche. None of the other college pupils are effected at all. and here his foreigner position impinges on him one time more.

The consequence is that he surrenders himself to the austere spiritual being. so much so that when the clip comes for him to go forth college he is nominated for a scholarship for priesthood. By this clip Stephen has come to recognize that conventional faith does non reply his quest for interior harmoniousness. and so he decides to turn down the offer. and to come in university alternatively. Shortly after he experiences another minute of epiphany on the beach. when he observes a immature lady wading in the H2O. and he is overcome by a sense of natural beauty.

He realized that his true pursuit is for aesthetic beauty. and that he must transport it on “among the traps of the world” ( Joyce 175 ) . He has non yet realized himself as an creative person. and at university he is accosted by the secular political orientations that go up to do convention. In his treatment with his friends he tries to stress the importance of go forthing all signifiers of convention behind. but they are far excessively immersed in the established manner to take his point. He is close to Cranly. to whose sympathetic ear he divulges his artistic yearnings.

Cranly warns him that he is destined for solitariness. but this does non discourage Stephen. In this stage he bit by bit becomes cognizant that his true individuality is contained in his latter name ‘Dedalus’ . and non his first ‘Stephen’ ( linked to the first Christian sufferer ) . Dedalus is the fabulous ‘great artificer’ who uses his art to get away from parturiency by King Minos. The myth says that he learnt to wing. and he allowed his boy Icarus to wing foremost. who became excessively audacious and flew near to the Sun. which it melted his waxed wings and he fell to his decease.

Joyce is comparing the old being of Stephen to Icarus. and his term of office with religionism is compared to Icarus’ heady acclivity. The individual who has survived is now compared to Dedalus. He sees in the name a “symbol of the creative person hammering anew in his workshop out of the sulky affair of the Earth a new surging intangible imperishable being” ( Joyce 163 ) . There are two striking points that emerge from this novel. First there is the advanced usage of linguistic communication sing the “stream of consciousness” technique.

Writers who followed in the footfalls of Joyce enthused in this new technique. which reflected so good the fragmental character of modern being. and its accent on being above outmoded signifiers. Virginia Woolf says. “Let us enter the atoms as they fall upon the head in the order in which they fall. allow us follow the form. nevertheless staccato and incoherent in visual aspect. which each sight or incident tonss upon the consciousness” ( qtd. in Zwerdling 14 ) . Other critics stress the symbolism. which occurs at many degrees and suffused throughout the novel.

Apart from the Dedalus connexion. Tindall discovers identification with Christ on the one manus. and with Lucifer on the other ( Stephen is made to express Lucifer’s words “I will non serve” ) ( 10 ) . But such analyses must non let us to lose sight of the original subject. which is that of nonconformity to convention. In fact. Joyce message bells with that of Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Whoso would be a adult male. must be a nonconformist” ( 21 ) . Emerson was voicing the ethos of the modern age. whereas Joyce is showing it as the sublimation of artistic enterprise.

In decision. though hard to read. Joyce’s Portrait is a fresh worth doing the attempt for. Through his fresh literary techniques he is seeking to redefine literature so that it becomes relevant to the modern age characterized by atomization and disaffection. Apart from the labored techniques. the novel is besides worthy for its rich symbolism. which exists on many planes. and for the important allusions to literature and civilization. It is non merely an autobiographical and ‘coming of age’ novel. but it besides makes a baronial effort to name and rectify the cardinal unease of the modern age.