'Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man'

Paper Summary:

This paper examines James Joyce's "Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man" and discusses how through his novel literary techniques Joyce is trying to redefine literature so that it becomes relevant to the modern age characterized by fragmentation and alienation. The paper looks at how the protagonist in the novel is trying do discover his artistic self but, in the process, discovers loneliness, because everything that society has to offer is outmoded and redundant. The paper also discusses how, apart from the strained techniques, the novel is also worthy for its rich symbolism, which exists on many planes, and for the significant allusions to literature and culture.

From the Paper:

"The novel describes the several stages by which it protagonist Stephen Dedalus discovers himself as an artist. In the process he takes refuge in the conventional identities provided by society in the various stages of his growing up. But Stephen is meant for greatness, and the conventional identities are only refuges for mediocrity, and this is what he discovers time and time again. The transition from one stage to the next is marked by epiphanies - sudden bouts of realization that transform the inner self. Apart from the many minor epiphanies that accompany the growing young man, there are two major such occasions. The first is his discovery of conventional faith. The second occurs when he comes to realize that the Church is a restricting influence, and that he must escape if he is to express himself as an artist. It occurs when he must make a choice between training to be a Catholic priest, or to enter the secular domain of university."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Eliot, Thomas Stearns. The Waste Land and Other Poems. New York: Penguin Classics, 1998.
• Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Self-reliance and Other Essays. Chelmsford, MA Courier Dover Publications, 1993.
• Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003.
• Sartre J. P. (2007). Existentialism Is a Humanism. Translated by Carol Macomber. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• Sigg, Eric Whitman. The American T. S. Eliot: A Study of the Early Writings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

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