A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Essay

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James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which takes place in late 19th century Ireland, is a modernist Bildungsroman about Stephen Dedalus, a young man who, while facing the obstacles of his family, religion, and nation, tries to discover his life's purpose. Throughout the novel, Joyce takes the readers through Stephen's labyrinthine life, using techniques such as epiphanies, betrayals, and central images.

One of the three institutions that Stephen grapples with in the novel is his family. As the story progresses, the Dedalus' financial situation becomes worse. Stephen stops attending boarding school, and each home his family moves into is more run down than the one before. Stephen's family's status causes him to grow away from his mother and father. His relationship with his mother, Mary Dedalus, is different in the end of the novel than it was in the beginning. Initially, Stephen longs for his mother when he is a young boy at Clongowes, a Jesuit boarding school, wishing to “lay his head on [her] lap” (pg. 6). However, by the end of the novel, when Stephen's friend...

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