A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

The mind wanders, on occasion, through many processions of thought. When at the beginning of this text, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, I found it difficult to follow young Stephen's meandering thoughts with any semblance of comprehension until I finished reading the novel. I then began to research the novel and Joyce and realized the significance of these seemingly random thoughts. These are the thoughts of a budding artist in infancy.

As Stephen matured, so did his thoughts. His struggle with self is central to understanding the novel. Without any indication of any other person's thoughts, Stephen's thoughts provoke our own to fill in where Joyce left the narrative blank. His struggle with self deals with religion, sin, sexuality, and prudence. Courage may be added to this list, but to a lesser extent. Stephen feels it is sufficient to hide and keep silent more than to stand on a soapbox and say what he thinks to a crowd.

Many of his mannerisms are learned responses from earlier dealings with schoolmates and family. In Chapter 1, line 30, Stephen hides when he is in trouble for something unknown to the reader. He hides his emotions on lines 81 and 82 of chapter 1 when his mother is crying as she leaves him at school. He attempts to hide his shame, on lines 259-265 in the same chapter, at not knowing the correct answer between kissing his mother or not doing so.

These learned responses of defense are somewhat, but not completely ignored when his thoughts begin to mature and he forms his own philosophy of what is beautiful through the study of others (Chapter 5, Lines 1161-1469). He speaks openly, to Lynch at least, about what beauty is and what art is. Later, also in Chapter 5, he speaks openly to Cranly about religion and his lack of belief therein. He believes that Cranly is friend enough not to tell others that Stephen is, what might have been considered, a heretic.