A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is an autobiographical novel which describes the growth of James Joyce from early childhood to the stage in his manhood when he was ready to take up his selected vocation of an artist. The hero is named Stephen Dedalus and the Novel describes his struggles from childhood to early adolescence. He felt that a true artist must not have any loyalty except to his vocation as an artist. The novel, therefore, describes how Stephen broke the bonds which bound him to his family, his country and his church.
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James Joyce started writing an autobiographical novel while he was still in his teens. He took Stephen as his hero and under that disguise he described in detail incidents which had shaped his own personality and his career. The descriptions were mostly objective and there was less in them of the personality of Stephen and more of the events around him which affected the author.
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By 1909 he had written about 1,50,000 words of this book and it was not even half complete. Joyce was not happy with this writing and decided to reject it and write a much shorter book in five chapters only. The style of the new book was to be subjective and the focus would be on the artist and his attempts to fly out of the cages in which his family, his country and his church wanted to imprison him. After A portrait was published in 1916 Joyce destroyed most of the manuscript of the earlier work. What survived was published after Joyce’s death as Stephen Hero.
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Joyce selected the title of this novel very carefully. Every word including the articles, is significant and appropriate. It is a portrait of the artist. It is not the portrait of any artist or a typical artist. It is a portrait of the artist (Joyce himself). The last four words are also significant. It shows the progress of the artist while he was a young man. It begins when Stephen was a small child and traces his progress up to the time of his early adolescence when he is ready for his vocation as an artist.
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In this novel at places Joyce adopted the style of naturalism which he had learnt from continental masters. He does not himself tell us anything about Stephen. We are to learn about the hero only through his consciousness. The author does not give us any information about Stephen’s childhood. He only tells us what Stephen remembers about his early days.
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The opening sentence gives us an idea about this new technique. Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a niceus little boy named baby tuckoo. But the style changes a little later. The author gives us the information about the Vance family.
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The Vances lived in number seven. They had a different father and mother. They were Eileen’s father and mother. When they were grown up he was going to marry Eileen. But Eileen was a Protestant and it would be a sin for a Roman Catholic to marry a Protestant girl. So his mother said, “O, Stephen will apologies.”
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Dante said, “If he does not apologies the eagles will come and pull out his eyes.” A critic has said Stephen Dedalus is presented to us with an unexampled intimacy and immediacy. It is true that this is achieved at some cost to the vitality of the book as a whole. Here as later in parts of Ulysses, we are locked up firmly inside Stephen’s head, and there are times when we feel like shouting to be let out.
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Joyce has not constructed this novel on a set pattern. There is a wide variety of styles and techniques in this book. In different parts of the novel he appears to be a realist or a symbolist or an associationist or a psychological novelist. At first James Joyce found it very difficult to get a publisher for this novel. It was only because of the high praise given to it by Ezra Pound that The Egoist agreed to print it serially.
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Ezra Pound said that it contained the best prose of the decade and was one of the few works that showed creative invention. When it appeared in book form it baffled the reviewers and critics. It was a new type of work and so the reviewers, who applied the old standards to it, found numerous faults in it. They said that it was one-sided because it considered everything only from the point of view of Stephen.
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They also said that the inclusion of sermons and a theory of aesthetics was irrelevant in this novel. One reviewer called it a study in garbage. It was also called a brilliant and nasty variety of pseudorealism. The Nation called Joyce a new write with a new form. James Joyce writes in a realistic style but he makes full use of symbols and motifs.
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For instance Stephen’s defective eyesight becomes a symbol and recurs again and again. In the very beginning Dante tells him to apologize otherwise the eagles will come and pull out his eyes. He cannot play well because of his defective eyesight. His spectacles are broken and so he cannot do work in the class. Because of this he is unjustly punished by Father Dolan. Father Dolan says that his guilt is to be seen in his eyes.
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The symbols thus present a complexity of ideas. According to William M. Schutte the more one reads the novel the more one gets impressed by the subtlety and the pervasiveness of his use of motif and symbol. The most innocent of sentences becomes charged with meaning as one sees it in the context of the related elements. When for example we read on the second page of the text that the evening air was pale and chilly and after every charge and thud of the footballers the greasy leather orb flew like a heavy bird through the grey light.
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We may recognize simply an effective descriptive sentence. Only when we read the final phrases in the light of the many other references to flying birds and flying men, when we recognize that the word greasy takes on particularly unsavoury connotations as the novel progresses and when we discover that chilly is the first in a subtly insinuated series of references to heat and cold which gradually prepare us for the knowledge that Stephen is coming down with influenza-only when we recall all of these matters do we grasp the full import of the innocent looking piece of descriptive prose.
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A Portrait of the Artist is an autobiographical novel. Here Joyce has drawn a self-portrait. Most of the incidents which happen to Stephen are taken from the life of the author himself. James Joyce once said, “Many writers have written about themselves. I wonder if any of them has been as candid as I have.” Joyce’s schoolfellows at Clongowes Wood became Stephen’s schoolfellows at Clongowes Wood under their real names.
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In other cases the names are different but the men and women could be easily recognized. The early reviewers, therefore saw the book as thinly disguised autobiography. But it would be wrong to regard A portrait as a complete autobiography. Many of the incidents described in this book were not taken from Joyce’s onw life but from the lives of other people. J.F. Bryne, the model for Cranly has stated that it was he not Joyce who discussed with the Dean of Studies the art of lighting fires. David Sheely has pointed out that Joyce did not take off the Rector of Belvedere in a school play : though Stephen was urged to do so he did not.
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So as a source of information on the life of James Joyce A portrait is only partially reliable. But the aesthetic theory of Stephen is definitely based on the ideas of Joyce. A word should be said here about the name which Joyce gives to his hero. St. Stephen was the first Christian martyr. Stephen, the artist also becomes a martyr. Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church try to crush down his spirit and put him in a cage and he has to fly away from these in order to follow his chosen vocation as an artist
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The surname Daedalus is derived from the pagan myth of Daedalus and his son lcarus. Daedalus was kept in a prison along with his son. He devised wings for both of them and by attaching these to their bodies they escaped from prison. Daedalus reached a safe place but lcarus was a proud person and so he flew very high towards the sun, the wax with which the wings were attached to the body melted due to heat and he fell down in the sea and was drowned.
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Stephen is like Daedalus because he devised the means of escaping f5rom ireland which was like a prison to him. Stephen is also like Icarus in the matter of his pride. Due to his pride he is alienated from his family, his nation and his church and he goes into voluntary exile to escape the domination of all three of them. The novel begins with the childhood memories of Stephen. He remembers a story about a moo-cow. He remembers that he once wetted the bed.
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He also remembers some heated discussions on Irish politics that took place between Simon Dedalus (his father), Mary Dedalus (his mother), uncle Charles and Dante (Mrs. Riordan). A girl named Eileeen Vance lived in their neighbourhood. Stephen thought that he would marry her when he grew up. But she was a Protestant and so he was warned by Dante that the eagles will come and pull out his eyes. Then he was sent to a boy’s Boarding School named Clongowes Wood College.
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He did not like games. He remembers that he was pushed into a ditch of dirty water by a ill-mannered fellow called Wells and how he caught cold because of this. He starts having fears that he would die. Stephen remembers One Christmas which he spent with his family. He was now allowed to attend the dinner with the elders. But the dinner was spoiled by a heated discussion about Parnell who had just died. Stephen remembers how he had once been unjusty punished at School.
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His spectacles were broken and so he was excused studies. But Father Dolan called him a schemer and caned him in the class. He reported the matter to the Rector but he took it rather casually. But the students cheered Stephen for his courage in taking up the question with the Rector. The financial condition of the family was gradually deteriorating and so it was decided that Stephen would not be sent back to this expensive school. He was sent to another school called Belvedere College. Here one of the teachers accused him of heresy. Three boys caught hold of him and beat him because he regarded Byron as the best poet of English Literature.
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Stephen was taken by his father to Cork where he had to sell some of his property. He was taken to Queen’s college where his father had studied and introduced to some of his old friends. Stephen won a prize in an essay competition. He used the money to entertain the family which had become very poor. Stephen had fierce longings. One night he walked into a dirty street where there were brothels. One young prostitute invited him to her room. He surrendered himself to her. Then he started going to the prostitutes regularly.
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A three day Retreat was going to be celebrated in the school in honour of the patron saint of the school, Saint Francis Xavier. .Stephen’s old teacher, Father Arnall, delivered the main lecture. He described in full details the horrors of hell and the tortures which awaited sinners there. Stephen felt that the lecture was meant only for him. He was thoroughly shaken. He went to a church far away from the school and made a full confession before an old priest. He now felt that he had been pardoned for all his sins and be received Holy Communion. Stephen now started mortifying the body in order to subdue the flesh.
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He started leading a very pious life. Considering his pious life the director of the school called him and asked him whether he would like to become a priest of the church. At first he was tempted but later reflection convinced him that the work of a priest will not suit him. Stephen went for a walk along the sea shore. He entered the water. He saw agirl ahead of him. She seemed to be a sea bird. He remembered that he bore the name of Daedalus who had flown in the air. He also must fly. He must abandon his family, his country and his church and adopt the life of a pure artist.
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Stephen then goes to the University. One day while talking to the Dean of Studies he starts a discussion on the five arts and aesthetic philosophy. The discussion is continued and while he is wailing with Lynch he elaborates his aesthetic theory. Stephen’s theory is based on the ideas of Aristotle and Aquinas. He believed that the creative artist aims at the creation of good and useful articles. True art must satisfy the aesthetic sense of the beholder. It must produce stasis in the observer. Didacticism and pornography are bad because they produce movement or kinesis.
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The perception of the beautiful requires wholeness, harmony and clarity. All art can be classified as lyrical, epical or dramatic. A group of students ask Stephen to sign a petition for disarmament and world peace. Stephen refuses to sign this petition. Stephen denounces Davin’s blind patriotism. He himself has no love for Ireland. He is determined to leave it. Stephen tells Cranly that he had an argument with his mother about religion. On the occasion of Easter he refused to go th Mass and Communion.
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He repeated the words of Lucifer : “I will not serve.” he loved his bother but he could not sacrifice his principles at her bidding. He tells Cranly that he cannot serve that in which he no longer believes whether it is church or home or country. He will lives He will live as best as he can, defending himself with the only arms he allows himself silence, exile and cunning. He does not fear to be along or forsaken or to make a mistake even a mistake as long as eternity.
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The novel ends with certain entries in Stephen’s diary. His last entry dated 27th April reads : “Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead. Thus Stephen flies away from his home, his country and his church which wanted to hold him in bondage.