Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man Essay

I constitute the story depicting of the Artist as a Young Man precise difficult to read at basic, and could set about genuinely(prenominal) little sense of it. after(prenominal) doing rough background res pinnulech I beget some to study some of the motives of Joyce, from which it seems that the difficulty was non due to whatever shortcoming on my p wile, because I lie with that that even the most sympathetic critics fool faced the alike difficulties. Joyce does non delegate to offer a pompous narrative. t herefore his motive is to deconstruct conference.The star of the new is described as relinquishing whole forms of formula, in his feat to forge for himself a new existence in the faculty of a true mechanic. further Joyce does not want to offer this theme in the conventional mode either. Not just the substance, al angiotensin converting enzyme the means and the talking to moldiness(prenominal) also be suffused by the same theme. In its effort not t o numerate on either cultural norms, it employs the mode of pullulate of consciousness. This is the technique where vulgar consciousness of thought is seen as the bag for truth, and it is meant that these thought patterns be transposed instantly onto the p time.It is not to effect realism, as index be thought at premier(prenominal) hand. Realism is art is a very conscious and calculating mode. The underlying ism is better described as empiricism. It rec in alls the existential philosopher Jean Paul Sartres agnomen existence precedes essence (22). The existentialists aim to understand pure existence, which is yet without essence, or form. It describes scarce the passages in the Portrait which employ the stream of consciousness method. From this point of view I embed that a second meter reading was much easier, scarcely because I was more aw ar of the motivations of the writer. separate mode which heralds to judging is youngity. T. S. Eliot is said to be the inst igator of modernism with his 1922 poem The barren. This poem presents us with fragments from the literary cultural tradition of the West, but in a haphazard way, without any seeming coherence, as proclaimed in the poem itself, These fragments I choose shored against my ruins (Eliot 69). Eliot himself admitted that he wrote the poem as a reaction to catastrophe of the Great War, and tried to perplex its impact on the Western encephalon in general.He believed that conventional art forms had nonplus meaningless in the commodious panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary invoice (qtd. in Sigg 182). The modernist genre that sprung from this poem whoremaster be said to be characterized by futility, and the search for transcendental meaning. Despite unlike points of similarity is it wrong classify Joyce as a modernist. Not besides does the Portrait appears well forrader the publication of The Wasteland, it is also composed well before the onset of the Great War, an d therefore cannot have been motivated in exactly the same way.Neither is it fragmental and incoherent in the way Eliots poem is. It is inclose by autobiography, and therefore possesses overall coherence. Eliots is a despairing cry of futility. The jockstrap of Joyce also comes across the futility of all conventional norms, but in the end the new(a) is not characterized merely by despair. The champ discovering himself as an artist represents hope in the end. The novel describes the several stages by which it protagonist Stephen Dedalus discovers himself as an artist.In the process he arrives refuge in the conventional identities provided by auberge in the various stages of his outgrowth up. But Stephen is meant for greatness, and the conventional identities atomic number 18 only refuges for mediocrity, and this is what he discovers sequence and time again. The transiton from one stage to the next is marked by epiphanies sudden bouts of realization that transform the infor mal self. obscure from the many a(prenominal) minor epiphanies that company the maturation young man, there argon two major(ip) such causations.The maiden is his discovery of conventional faith. The second occurs when he comes to pull in that the perform is a circumscribe influence, and that he must escape if he is to express himself as an artist. It occurs when he must operate a choice amidst training to be a Catholic priest, or to immortalize the secular commonwealth of university. He opts for the second choice. It is a major decision, but does not yet intend that he is free to become an artist. University opens up to him a diverse array of ideologies.Stephen comes to befool that none of the ideas that academia has to offer are able to address his inner impulse towards creativeness. His goal, as he expresses at the very end of the novel, is to to forge in the forge of his soul the uncreated conscience of his race (276). His nett realization is that the conventiona l mode of Irish existence is wanting in conscience. And as an artist he has unders tood his agency as to make up for this cardinal lack. It is a role of heroic proportions, and which only the artist is able to undertake.So the creativity which Stephen intends in not mere self-expression, it is towards creating a conscience for his race. There are many occasions darn he is growing up in Dublin when he comes to realize that there is something perfectly lacking in what society has to offer him. In school it appears as if the appreciation of his peers is the highest goal, and he is in awe of the bullies of the classroom who reign over attention. On one occasion he is dealt with a caning from a instructor which he didnt really de manage.He classmates challenge him to take action, and to report the instructor to the headmaster. Up to this point he seems otiose to stand up for himself, yet he takes on the challenge of his peers to go up to the headmasters room all alone, and puts h is case forthrightly. To his peers he is instant heroes, and they countermand him up in the air together. The striking aspect of this incident is that the glory does not register with Stephen. Even while he is being hoisted, he wants to escape their grip, and when the cheers have died down he feels himself to be an foreigner just as before.On the occasion when he is first allowed to attend Christmas dinner party with the adults, he observes a vicious stemma taking place with politics and righteousness mixed in. It centers on the Catholic Churchs demonizing of Charles Stuart Parnell, who had led the movement Irish independence from the British. Parnells fortunes reversed when it was found out that he was involved in an affair with a married women, which was considered desecration in the strictly Catholic society that Ireland was. In the argument Stephens aunty is on the side of phantasmal authority, while Stephenss father and the outsider Mr.Casey cope for politics. However l ittle Stephen understands of this argument, if gives him a apprehend of corruption in high places. But more than this he comes to realize superficiality and brittleness of family life that can be unsettled by cheap un humansly and political talk. It marks the beginning of Stephens moving away from family and tradition. He comes to realize later on that his father is completely unconnected to modern life, and merely engages in nostalgia, drunkenness and superficiality. Stephen renouncing of his family is the first step towards the rejection of convention as a whole.As be becomes more alienated from his family he starts to bid prostitutes, and in general gives himself up to a life of secret sin, even though he is wracked by guilt inside. Another moment of epiphany takes place when he is catch up with by a sermon delivered by the college pastor. In the meantime he had become strangely drawn towards the Virgin Mary, and when the rector delivers fiery and graphic accounts of hellf ire and damnation, Stephen is genuinely terrified from the depth of his soul. None of the other college students are effected at all, and here his outsider status impinges on him once more.The upshot is that he surrenders himself to the austere religious existence, so much so that when the time comes for him to leave college he is nominated for a scholarship for priesthood. By this time Stephen has come to realize that conventional religion does not answer his quest for inner harmony, and so he decides to turn down the offer, and to enter university instead. Shortly after he experiences other moment of epiphany on the b apiece, when he observes a young lady wading in the water, and he is overcome by a sense of natural beauty.He accomplished that his true quest is for aesthetic beauty, and that he must carry it on among the snares of the realness (Joyce 175). He has not yet know himself as an artist, and at university he is accosted by the secular ideologies that go up to make c onvention. In his discussion with his friends he tries to underscore the importance of leaving all forms of convention behind, but they are far too immersed in the established mode to take his point. He is close to Cranly, to whose sympathetic ear he divulges his artistic longings.Cranly warns him that he is designate for loneliness, but this does not deter Stephen. In this phase he gradually becomes aware(predicate) that his true identity is contained in his last mentioned name Dedalus, and not his first Stephen (linked to the first Christian martyr). Dedalus is the mythical great crafter who uses his art to escape from confinement by King Minos. The myth says that he learnt to fly, and he allowed his son Icarus to fly first, who became too gallant and flew close to the sun, which it melted his waxed go and he fell to his death.Joyce is comparing the preliminary existence of Stephen to Icarus, and his tenure with religiosity is compared to Icarus foolhardy ascent. The pers on who has survived is now compared to Dedalus. He sees in the name a symbol of the artist forging anew in his store out of the sluggish matter of the earth a new soaring abstract imperishable being (Joyce 163). There are two striking points that emerge from this novel. initiative there is the innovative use of language regarding the stream of consciousness technique.Writers who followed in the footsteps of Joyce enthused in this new technique, which reflected so well the fragmentary character of modern existence, and its emphasis on existence above outmoded forms. Virginia Woolf says, let us record the atoms as they illumine upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, but disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each mess or incident gobs upon the consciousness (qtd. in Zwerdling 14). Other critics examine the symbolism, which occurs at many levels and suffused throughout the novel.Apart from the Dedalus connection, Tindall discovers ide ntification with Christ on the one hand, and with Lucifer on the other (Stephen is make to utter Lucifers quarrel I will not serve) (10). But such analyses must not allow us to lose sight of the original theme, which is that of nonconformity to convention. In fact, Joyce heart and soul chimes with that of Ralph Waldo Emerson Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist (21). Emerson was voicing the ethos of the modern age, whereas Joyce is presenting it as the sublimation of artistic endeavor.In conclusion, though difficult to read, Joyces Portrait is a novel worth making the effort for. Through his novel literary techniques he is trying to redefine literature so that it becomes relevant to the modern age characterized by fragmentation and alienation. Apart from the strained techniques, the novel is also worthy for its rich symbolism, which exists on many planes, and for the significant allusions to literature and culture. It is not only an autobiographical and coming of age nove l, but it also makes a fearful attempt to diagnose and correct the fundamental malaise of the modern age.