"Stephen Hero"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that James Joyce's semi-autobiographical rendering of Joyce's fully autobiographical conception of himself "Stephen Hero" can be found in both "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" and "Ulysses". The author relates that the hero of these tales, Stephen Dedalus, serves as the focal point of both novels and should be viewed as the abridged version of "Stephen Hero", an almost allegorical tale of an artist besieged by his surroundings. The paper points out that, at the heart of the idea that Stephen Dedalus can represent the universal modern man is Joyce's struggle with himself to convey his own life into words, concluding that the best possible representation of himself that can be conveyed is one in which he is a character lost in a world he cannot hope to understand.

From the Paper:

"Joyce uses the imagery with the fox again towards the end of Ulysses. A hallucination that brings his riddle back to the surface: "A stout fox drawn from a covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother, runs swift for the open, brighteyed, seeking badger earth, under the leaves." This is the physical and relatable explanation of the events that could have linearly led to the formulation of the riddle; however, it is presented in this reverse fashion. "The foxhunt represents the absolute disjoining of Stephen's two selves." The trouble is that Joyce, through the progression of Stephen from Portrait into, and eventually, out of Ulysses, has gradually brought about the loss of his hero's sovereignty."

More papers on "Stephen Hero":

• Analytical Essay # 2128 : "Losing Religion in Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist"
• Analytical Essay # 22870 : "Adolescence to Adulthood"
• Book Review # 30276 : "Red Badge of Cowardice"

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