A Portrait of Flight
In James Joyce’s A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, Joyce depicts the character Stephen as a developing artist trying to form. Stephen has undulating passions within him but he can not always control or direct them. Mostly Stephen is trying to understand them. As Stephen is growing up and trying to identify himself he is trying to identify who he is within his environment. This theme is significant to making Portrait a bildungsroman. Stephen is using the social order, which is religion and nationality, to try to establish him. Joyce blurs the lines of his bildungsroman when he uses Stephen identifying himself to reject his society: the Catholic Church and Ireland
Joyce shows Stephen’s struggle to birth his own soul as an artist does. In a recent class we discussed how Joyce often shows Stephen wanting to be his own father. This birth of his own soul took longer and was way deeper than the birth of his body as Joyce showed us. Joyce shows us in Chapter One about Stephen’s uncomfortable adolescence. Whenever Stephen is uncomfortable he feels something cold or slippery which is Joyce’s connection to body as is Stephen’s obsession with being weak or strong. “And though he trembled with cold and fright to think of the cruel long nails and of the high whistling sound of the cane and of the chill you felt at the end of your shirt when you undressed yourself yet he felt a feeling of queer quiet pleasure inside him to think of the white fattish hands, clean and strong and gentle.” Stephen’s attention to body and feelings here show that he is intrigued with feeling strong and powerful because he is not in control at this stage of his life and his feelings of fear and strangeness are expressed in his trembling with cold. Stephen’s birth of his body also brings him into temptation and sin. When Stephen is describing his desires as a tide he’s tried to hold back he says, “How foolish his aim had been! He had tried to build a break-water of order and elegance against the sordid tide of life without him and to dam up, by rules of conduct and active interest and new filial relations, the powerful recurrence of the tides within him. Useless. From without as from within the waters had flowed over his barriers: their tides began once more to jostle fiercely above the crumbled mole.” These desires pour out when he surrenders himself to sin, “He cared little that he was in mortal sin, that his life had grown to be a tissue of subterfuge and falsehood.” Stephen is letting his body become a passenger of the waves of his desires; the waves are breaking through in a crash. The curiosity and mystery of the sin is appealing to Stephen because he believes he is finding answers about himself. He has not yet birthed his soul: “he felt an unknown and timid pressure, darker than the swoon of sin, softer than sound or odor.” This “swoon” is Stephen’s body being excited to act in its desires; Stephen’s epiphany to art is via the beauty of a girl channeling his body desires however, Stephen does not yet understand that these desires are shallow and meaningless to his true calling.
Throughout this book Joyce is also showing us that the soul is beyond the social order. Stephen’s social order is the Catholic Church and his Irish nationality. Joyce setting Portrait in Ireland Ireland eating its own children is the form of paralysis that Joyce executes in Stephen by showing that Stephen is tied back by all these nets but he is not himself yet but once he tries to break away he is gobbled up by Ireland Ireland Ireland
Joyce uses Stephen Dedalus as a vessel to liberation. Stephen is someone whose body was born with temptations and desires. His spirit was born into something bigger than Stephen, which ruled over everything. He was born in a place that kept his soul from being born. When Stephen started to explore at first his simple and shallow body sins he found a path to enlighten within the church. After rejecting sin Stephen was able to see the world beyond his society of Ireland
The Significance of Water Imagery in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man The motif of water in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce conveys details about the character of Stephen Dedalus. Joyce uses images of water to describe Stephen’s conflict with his environment and reveal the state of his soul. The way in which water appears can tell how Stephen is feeling about his place in the world, including his relationships with other people. It can also tell the reader about the shape of his spirituality or his progress in his identity formation. Part of his identity formation is his artistic passion, which conflicts with his environment and is represented by tides and waves.
In the beginning of the novel, water is used to show Stephen’s discomfort in his environment. He is outcasted by his peers at school, which greatly adds to his discomfort. This is displayed when Stephen remembers a peer of his named Wells pushing him into a ditch full of water and Stephen notes, “It was a mean thing to do; all the fellows said it was. And how cold and slimy the water had been!” It is ironic that a child named Wells pushes him into the water. This is another appearance of the motif, although it is subtle. This one action by Wells illustrates the treatment Stephen receives from his classmates over the course of his entire childhood. This treatment causes him to be considerably detached from his environment, which in turn allows him to disregard the standards of his society in his process of identity and artistic formation.
Water appears in the form of a distressed soul after Stephen fails to unite family using some money he has earned. After trips to the theatre, orders of “great parcels of groceries and delicacies and dried fruits,” and other such expenditures which Stephen highly dramatasizes, he runs out of money. This ends his domestic bliss, returning his life normalcy. He feels foolish for trying to strive for perfection and this triggers the “powerful recurrence of the tide within him.” Here Stephen feels that his passion is uncontrollable and cannot be organized externally in any method that he is familiar with. This scene depicts the only warmth Stephen ever shows for his family, but it is destroyed once his fantasy of bringing them closer together falls apart. After this he only expresses cold emotions for his family. Likewise is his passion: it must either be controlled completely or entirely reckless. When it cannot be controlled, Stephen feels, “from without as from within the water had flowed over his barriers: their tides began once more to jostle fiercely above the crumbled mole.” This is foreshadowing for the Stephen’s encounter with a prostitute which closely follows. Since he feels reckless internally, he brings that recklessness into the outside world with his actions. The tides of passion that he experiences correlate with the sin that he will soon commit, sending his soul into a state of impurity.
While water imagery has a negative connotation for much of the beginning of the novel, it develops an opposite meaning once he contemplates the state of his soul at a religious retreat. He gives water a biblical association while he is at the retreat. He thinks rain flooding the earth for forty days and nights in the essence of the flood described in the Bible. Here, water takes on its more traditional purpose of representing cleansing and purity. Stephen imagines, “All life would be choked off, noiselessly: birds, men, elephants, pigs, children: noiselessly floating corpses amid the litter of the wreckage of the world.” His soul temporarily peaceful because he feels that it is being cleansed by his religious experiences. His passion is being controlled by the outside force of religion, therefore taming its recklessness.
The water motif continues to have a positive implication as Stephen’s passion transitions from being channeled through religion to being channeled artistically. Water appears while he experiences an artistic epiphany, which is inspired by a girl Stephen sees while at a beach. He is wading in the ocean when he first sees the girl. This can be seen as Stephen entering his life as an artist; as he walks into the ocean he walks nearer to his artistic epiphany. The tide appears again immediately after the epiphany, when he notices that, “the tide was flowing in fast to the land with a low whisper of her waves, islanding a few last figures into distant pools.” Of course, he is referring to the actual tide on the beach, but its actions reflect his internal tide of passion. It is flowing quickly because of the epiphany, but it is no longer reckless because it will now be utilized in his art.
Towards the end of the novel, the image of water has developed an entirely new meaning than the one it had previously. Water no longer appears as surging tidal waves, but instead shows up in more delicate forms such as dew. Stephen describes his soul as being “dewy and wet.” Joyce says his inspiration as being “pure as the purest water, sweet as dew.” These images reveal that Stephen’s passion is being used productively. It is not the same to say that it is being controlled, as it was by religion, because it is not influenced by external forces, but rather his own internal artistic force. Stephen’s soul has found contentment in art that it could not find in religion. When he is at the retreat, he uses the image of water violently in the form of a cleansing flood that eliminates all life on Earth. The image of the flood provides the idea that Stephen is almost desperate for purity. Here, though, he uses water in the much more delicate form of dew to describe his soul, showing that the calm state of his soul is more natural than ever before. Stephen’s calmness is further shown at the end of the novel by his descriptions of flowing water tides in a happy manner, unlike their previous use in the forms of tides and waves to show passion which caused him anguish. The “soft liquid joy like the noise of many waters” and water “lapping and flowing back and ever shaking the white bells of their waves in mute chime” illustrate how Stephen’s state of mind and soul have progressed from their once intemperate conditions.
Water imagery in A Portrait of the Artist transforms over the course of the novel in terms of how it relates to Stephen’s passion and soul. Water appears in Stephen’s childhood as something that troubles him and causes him great discomfort. Later, it becomes a symbol of spiritual cleansing after Stephen finds himself wracked with sin and throws himself into religion. Once he experiences an artistic epiphany, the water motif shows up in ways that emphasize that Stephen’s passion is being channeled into art.
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Seventh Sense to Fly Away by Creating
In A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce, the protagonist struggles with feelings of guilt about his physical senses. At a young age the people around him intensify this guilt and insecurity. While he is young, Stephen makes up poems and rhymes to help him escape the pressure he feels from the Catholic Church, his parents, and politics in Ireland. This is the beginning of his escape through art. As he matures he decides to become an artist, and in this way liberate himself from the social order.
As a child, Stephen fathom the size of the social constraints in which he is living. However, some important character traits are displayed through Stephen’s process early on. Six kinds of sensations; sight, taste, smell, touch, sound and desire are woven throughout the book. This is important because key details about Stephen and his growth are displayed through how he handles what is reacting with his body. On the first page of the book it says, “ His mother had a nicer smell than his father.” Although this quote may seem insignificant at first, it shows Stephen’s is uncomfortable feeling pertaining to men in authority through the sense of smell. In the first chapter Stephen’s aunt says, “The eagles will come and pull out his eyes.” In response Stephen makes up a little poem in which he rhymes eyes and apologize. The first chapter is full of subtle hints about how, due to his surroundings, Stephen is uncomfortable with his body and sensations his body encounters.
Another instance when Stephen feels self-conscious is at school as a child. A boy named Wells asks Stephen if he kisses his mother. When Stephen replies that he does Wells says, “ O I say, here’s a fellow says he kisses his mother every night before he goes to bed.” The book then reads, “Stephen blushed under their eyes.” Stephen changes his mind, and says that he does not kiss his mother, but gets the same response as before, teasing. Stephen deeply wonders what is important about a kiss. Later in the book, when he goes home for Christmas, Stephen kisses his mother, and wonders if it was right to show this affection because of how he dwells upon what others (his schoolmates) say about the matter. As a child, Stephen feels uncomfortable about his family. In the end he dissociates with them. Stephen decides that art is the only way he can be comfortable, because he is creating it.
Stephen’s first sexual encounter is with a prostitute. Unresolved family issues lead him to wander the streets of Belvedere where he meets the prostitute. He struggles at first in kissing the girl but soon lust takes over. He ends up sleeping with many prostitutes and feels great shame about it. In chapter three Stephen sits through a long sermon at his school. Quotes such as, “ And remember, my dear boys, that we have been sent into the world for one thing…to do God’s holy will…save our immortal souls” and, “Banish from your minds all worldly thoughts, and think only of the last things…sacrificed much in this earthly life, it will be given to him a hundred fold and a thousand fold more in the life to come…”(pg 97+98) are just the beginning of words that lead Stephen for a time, to stifle his physical senses. The next sermon that Stephen attends gives gruesome and disturbing images of hell. On page 105 it says, “ Hell is a strait and dark and foul smelling…filled with fire and smoke…designed by God to punish those who refused to be bound by His laws…bodies heaped on one another…All the filth of the world…all the offal and scum of the world… reeking sewer… worms gnawing at the eyes…rotting human fungus…feel the pain of fire…” Then on page 107 what would seem to be the clincher for Stephen’s next move is said, “Every sense of the flesh is tortured and every faculty of the soul therewith: the eyes with impenetrable utter darkness, the nose …the ears with yells and howls and execrations, the taste with… leprous corruption, nameless suffocating filth, the touch with red-hot goads and spikes, with cruel tongues of flame.” After sitting through this sermon Stephen goes on a crusade of his own, in which he surrounds himself with unpleasant smells, tastes, sounds, bodily sensations, and he will not look at women. It is apparent that Stephen feels guilty, otherwise he would go to the extremes that he does to be pure. In a sense Stephen puts himself through a less extreme version of the sermon preached. He irritates his senses in ways that imitate hell, in hopes of making up for the sins that he has committed. On page 131 the book tells the reader that the smell of stale fish and urine are some of the scents Stephen chooses to fill his nostrils with. He listened to the sound of knives being sharpened; this is equivalent of scraping one’s nails down a black board to torture themselves (for most people this is torturous). When a woman passes him he turns his head in the opposite direction so that he will not even cast eyes on subject matter that used to make him sin. It is unhealthy that Stephen felt he had to embrace himself with unpleasant surroundings just for the sake of not falling prey to sin. Eventually in this chapter, Stephen feels that he is starting to get control over the senses that lead to corruption.
The next set of key events that lead to Stephen’s transformation starts in chapter four. A priest tries to convince Stephen that he should become a priest. There are signs all throughout the passage that this is not the right thing for Stephen, and in fact that the priesthood is comparable to death and hell. A quote supporting this is found on page 134 and says, “ The director stood in the embrasure of the window, his back to the light, leaning an elbow on the brown cross blind, and, as he spoke and smiled, slowly dangling and looping the cord of the other blind…the priest’s face was in total shadow but the waning daylight from behind him touched to deeply grooved temples and curves of the skull.” This passage insinuates that the director is like a man holding a noose in which to hang Stephen if he enters the service of priesthood. The passage continues to describe the appearance of the director having dark features and his face being difficult to see. The skull-outlined face is there to emphasize death. At first Stephen is intrigued with the idea of becoming a priest, but the prospect soon sours in Stephen’s mind. Later in the chapter, Stephen envisions a girl bathing in a garden fountain. Stephen does not feel shame in looking at the girl, and he makes eye contact with her. In the text it says, “ “Her thighs, fuller and soft-hued as ivory…Her slate blue skirts were kilted boldly around her waist.” The colors white and blue portray color schemes that resemble the white and blue robes usually depicted on the Virgin Mary. The fact that the woman is bathing is symbolic of baptism. Stephen new lifestyle regarding religion requires a baptism of his mind, in which Stephen immerses himself in his decision to fully discard the social order. The importance of the girl resembling the Virgin Mary is Stephen was about to go out and do something that not many people would think is the right thing to do. When Mary became pregnant without being married she was separated from everyone else. Mary gave birth to redemption, and salvation. Stephen was setting a path that he hoped would be his salvation, but to do so he had to separate himself from virtually everything he knew. He no longer cared about turning his gaze from this girl. This vision of baptism is represents a new life that, just as the Virgin Mary birthed, Stephen would also birth a new standard.
The liberation that Stephen finds is displayed in the conversations that he had with friends in chapter five. They are there to display that Stephen is living his life by his motives instead of the social order. He had to discard family, religion and politics to achieve this. It is not easy, especially growing up when and where he did. Cranly, one of Stephen’s friends tests Stephen about the faith by saying sacrilegious things about Jesus to see what Stephen does. Stephen says that he will not serve. In this statement, Stephen is a contrast to the character of St. John in Jane Eyre who is convinced that he absolutely has to serve the church. Stephen and Jane are similar because they do not “serve” in the way that is expected of them. Jane Eyre ends up serving her husband however, and Stephen ends up serving himself. They do what they believe is best for their personal growth by following something that leads them from within, for Stephen it is art.
The last pages of the story are written in a different fashion than the rest of the book. The entire book is written from the position of someone watching everything that happens in Stephen’s life. The end however is written from Stephen’s point of view, as diary entries. The diary entries are unclear, and confusing to read, showing that perhaps Stephen’s growth is not complete yet. The steps of casting off family, religion and culture are not easy for Stephen but it is what he feels he has to do, based on the negative experience he has with bodily senses due to influence from his church, family, country.
