Portrait

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Stephen Dedalus is born of a woman, created of the earth; pure in his childhood innocence. From this beginning stems the birth of an artist, and from this the novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce recounts Stephen's story. His journey is followed from childhood to maturity, and thus his transformation from secular to saintly to an awakening of what he truly is. The novel evolves from simple, childlike diction, to sophisticated, higher ideas and thoughts as Dedalus completes his transition into an artist. In the beginning, Dedalus sees the world in an almost sing-song nursery rhyme sense, with a "moocow" coming down the road. By the end of the novel, Dedalus is mature and worldly; a man who stands tall and who feels confident with "Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead." (238). Through the use of the symbols of woman and earth, and white and purification, Joyce gives his novel depth and wonder. These symbols follow an array of transformations, changing throughout the novel much like Stephen himself.

The figure woman goes from the mother figure, to that of the whore, and finally to the representation of freedom itself. As a child, the image of the mother figure is strong. It is nurturing and supportive, that of "a woman standing at the half-door of a cottage with a child in her arms . . ." (10) who shelters and protects and makes Stephen afraid to "think of how it was" to be without a mother. As Stephen grows, however, like any child his dependency of him mother begins to dwindle, as does his awe for her. He begins to question his relationship with her and she is suddenly seen as a dirty figure, beginning the transformation of Stephen's image of women; from that of mother to whore. He first begins to questions the purity of his mother, his creator, his earth, when confronted by class mates, who taunt and confuse the innocent act of kissing his mother. He suddenly wonders, "Was it right to kiss his mother or wrong to kiss his mother? What did that mean, to kiss? You put your face up like that to say good night and then his mother put her face down. That was to kiss." (24) However, later in the novel the image of the pure and novel mother appears once more, but not in the figure of Stephen's own mother.