Portrait of an Artist Essay

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man tells the story of Stephen Dedalus as he grows from an introspective and conscious young man into a rebellious and disaffected adult. For much of the novel, young Stephen is trying to figure out exactly who he is and what it is that he values in life. It is a stream-of-consciousness story wherein the internal thoughts and feeling, no matter how insignificant they may seem are written in their entirety so as to represent in a fictional work how a real human being's thought processes guide their life. As an Irish youth, it is expected that Stephen will follow the orders of his parents and honor his father and mother, and that he will live and behave according to the Catholic tradition of his family members and his community. Religion and the ways that Dedalus reacts to the differences between the teachings of his familial Catholicism and his own burgeoning personal belief system are an important part of the story's narrative. As young Stephen develops physically so does his unique and individual religious beliefs.

For those in the Catholic religion, anything that is misunderstood in life was believed to be God's will and God's word was everything.From the time before they can talk, those born into the faith are taught the rules of the world according to the Christian religion and the Catholic denomination. God is something intangible and something all-powerful, a concept to be accepted and not questioned. However, Stephen finds himself unable to follow these teachings blindly. Early in the novel, Joyce writes, "It was very big to think about everything and everywhere. Only God could do that" (12). To think about the nature of existence was to question it and therefore to question God. Even in his very early years, Stephen finds it necessary to consider and to even contradict the supposedly established truths of the world around him.

The theme of the falsity of blind belief is further explored when the Dedalus family debates the involvement of politics in the religious world. Mr. Dedalus does not believe that the priest should be able to tell his flock how to vote or which causes to support, but this is happening in their community and all over the world. Mr. Dedalus says, "We go to the house of God, Mr. Casey said, in all humility to pray to our Maker and not to….....