Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man By: Valerie Gomez Stephen Dedalus, the
main character in most of James Joyce’s writings, is said to be a reflection
of Joyce himself. In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the reader follows
Stephen as he develops from a young child into a young artist, overcoming many
conflicts both internally and externally, and narrowly escaping a life long
commitment to the clergy. Through Joyce’s use of free indirect style, all of
Stephen’s speech, actions, and thoughts are filtered through the narrator of
the story. However, since Joyce so strongly identifies with Stephen, his
character’s style and personality greatly influence the narrator. This use of
free indirect style and stylistic contagion makes Joyce’s use of descriptive
language one of his most valuable tools in accurately depicting Stephen
Dedalus’s developing ideals of feminine beauty. As a very young child Stephen
is taught to idealize the Virgin Mary for her purity and holiness. She is
described to Stephen as "a tower of Ivory" and a "House of
Gold" (p.35). Stephen takes this literally and becomes confused as to how
these beautiful elements of ivory and gold could make up a human being. This
confusion is important in that it shows Stephen’s inability to grasp
abstraction. He is a young child who does not yet understand how someone can say
one thing and mean something else. This also explains his trouble in the future
with solving the riddles and puzzles presented to him by his classmates at
Clongowes. Stephen is very thoughtful and observant and looks for his own way to
explain or rationalize the things that he does not understand. In this manner he
can find those traits that he associates with the Blessed Mary in his protestant
playmate Eileen. Her hands are "long and white and thin and cold and soft.
That was ivory: a cold white thing. That was the meaning of Tower of Ivory"
(p.36). "Her fair hair had streamed out behind her like gold in the
sun" (p.43). To Stephen that is the meaning of House of Gold. He then
attributes Eileen’s ivory hands to the fact that she is a girl and generalized
these traits to all females. This produces a major conflict for Stephen when his
tutor, Dante, tells him not to play with Eileen because she is a Protestant and
Protestants don’t understand the Catholic faith and therefore will make a
mockery of it. His ideas about women being unattainable are confirmed. The
Virgin Mary is divine and therefore out of reach for mortals. Now Eileen, the
human representation of the Blessed Mary, is out of reach as well because
Stephen is not allowed to play with her. In chapter two an amazing
transformation takes place in Stephen from a young innocent child who believes
women are unattainable and who idealizes the Virgin Mary, into a young teen with
awakening sexual desires. As Stephen matures into adolescence, he becomes
increasingly aware of his sexuality, which at times is confusing to him. At the
beginning of the second chapter in A Portrait, we find Stephen associating
feminine beauty with the heroine Mercedes in Alexander Dumont Pere’s The Count
of Monte Cristo. "Outside Blackrock, on the road that led to the mountains,
stood a small whitewashed house in the garden of which grew many rosebushes: and
in this house, he told himself, another Mercedes lived….there appeared an
image of himself, grown older and sadder, standing in a moonlit garden with
Mercedes who had so many years before slighted his love…"(p. 62-3). These
fantasies about Mercedes are the first real step for Stephen in challenging the
church’s view of women, but again he feels as though this image of women is
out of his reach. She is a fictional character in a Romantic Adventure novel and
he can only imagine himself with her. Although Mercedes may not be real, the
feelings that Stephen has and the emotions she provokes in him are very real.
"…As he brooded upon her image, a strange unrest crept into his
blood." (p.64). "…but a premonition which led him on told him that
this image would, without any overt act of his, encounter him… and in that
moment of supreme tenderness he would be transfigured. He would fade into
something impalpable under her eyes and then in a moment, he would be
transfigured. Weakness and timidity and inexperience would fall from him that
magic moment." (p.65). Stephen realizes that some transformation is going
to take place, and Joyce emphasizes the words "transfigured" and
"moment" to indicate the kind of impact it will have on Stephen. At
this point in the novel, Stephen attributes this "premonition" to his
attraction to young Emma Clery. "…Amid the music and laughter her glance
traveled to his corner, flattering, taunting, searching, exciting his
heart." "…Sprays of her fresh warm breath flew gaily above her
cowled head and her shoes tapped blithely on the glassy road." (p. 69). As
they wait for the last tram from a Christmas party "His heart danced upon
her movements like a cork upon a tide." Joyce carefully uses these words to
ease the reader into the transition to sensual imagery to portray females. These
words convey Stephen’s feelings of excitement, and a new conflict arises
within him. He who still believes in the Catholic view of divine women now feels
troubled over his growing sexual drives. Stephen realizes that she is flirting
with him by the way she "urges her vanities" yet he is tempted to call
her on it. He wants to hold on to her and kiss her and he associates the whole
situation with the way in which Eileen had suddenly run down the path in a peal
of laughter hoping he would chase her. The conflict within Stephen whether or
not to kiss Emma stems from his continuing religious beliefs that women are holy
and not to be defiled, and like with Mercedes, he is forced to be content in
fulfilling his wishes only in his head. This encounter with Emma does place
females at a slightly more attainable level for Stephen and we are able to see
how it begins to shape his ultimate ideals of feminine beauty. However connected
to the church Stephen feels, it is impossible for him to just push these
feelings away from himself and ignore them. He decides to write a poem about
Emma Clery and for the first time, we see Stephen successfully use art as a
means of expression and relief. In his poem which is modeled after one from his
favorite poet, Byron, he acts out what he wishes he would have done and that is
to give Emma a kiss. Again this illustrates a side of Stephen that is not
comfortable with abstraction. He has not yet come to the realization that he is
not unlike other boys his age. This poem which is addressed to E____C____,
starts out with Ad Majorem Dei Gloriem, a Latin phrase meaning, "For the
Greater Glory of God" and ends with Laus Deo Semper meaning, "Praise
to God Always". This is especially interesting because the poem merges both
religion and art without Stephen’s knowledge that this is where the heart of
the conflict lies. It becomes an even greater conflict for Stephen when, as time
passes, he finds it more and more difficult to resist the temptations of his
sexual urges. He mentally defiles "with patience whatever image had
attracted his eyes" (p.99) and turns those images which had been innocent
by day into cunning and sinful images at night. His urges grow and become so
strong that Stephen is no longer able to resist temptation and crosses that line
into wretched sinner. The next major step in Stephen’s transformation is his
visit to the prostitute. The setting for this visit carries all of the elements
of a Black Mass. "Women and girls dressed in long vivid gowns traversed the
street…The yellow gasflames arose before his troubled vision against the
vapoury sky, burning as if before an altar." (p.100). The long vivid gowns
of the women and girls could be like those of the priests and the yellow
gasflames are meant to conjure up images of decay upon the altar. As the
prostitute approaches Stephen, Joyce uses the word "detain" to show
how the prostitute may have held Stephen against his will. This word becomes
significant later on in Stephen’s discussion with the priest in chapter five
as the priest tells Stephen the difference between the traditional use of the
word detain and it’s use in the marketplace. Virgin Mary was "detained in
the full company of the saints" (p.188) is different from "I hope I am
not detaining you" (p.188). In this way, Joyce implies that Stephen was
seduced by the prostitute and attempted to resist her up until the very last
moment before she kissed him. Stephen does not make a move towards the
prostitute, but instead waits in the middle of the room until she comes to him.
He will not bend to kiss her. He feels reassured by her embrace and longed for
her to just hold and caress him. Perhaps he regarded her as a mother figure and
he gained strength from this encounter. Joyce’s description of the room, the
obscene doll with it’s legs spread, the way the prostitute lures him in and
bends his lips to hers for him gives the reader the impression that Stephen is
an innocent and the prostitute is the sinner. This scene puts a new perspective
on that holy image of women for Stephen. It is a sharp contrast to those ideas
of holiness and purity and innocent shyness that he associated with Emma, and of
course, the Blessed Mary. It is even a contradiction to the image he had of
Mercedes. Although this encounter awakens a sense of freedom in Stephen that he
will not be able to suppress later on in the novel, he still cannot help but
feel overwhelming guilt about what he has done. At the retreat, he listens to
Father Arnell’s sermon about hell that seems to be targeted directly at him,
turning his tremendous guilt into fear. He has failed to avoid sin and for that
he will suffer the most horrible fate that anyone could ever imagine…spending
eternity in hell. He feels so ashamed that he is unable to repent in his own
church at Clongowes, but rather wishes to find a place as far removed from the
college as possible. This shame and guilt makes him vulnerable when the director
at Clongowes confronts him about becoming a priest. He envisions the power he
would have and thinks that if he were a priest that his superior piety would
save him from the wrath of hell. For him it seemed the only plausible escape.
His experience with the prostitute is essential in Stephen’s reanalysis of his
attraction to Emma Clery. He realizes now that her flirtatious gestures were not
reserved for him alone, and he suspected that she flaunted her charm to many
men. He becomes angry at the idea that women did not remain pure for their own
sake, but only out of their religious fear that their souls would be damned if
they sinned against the church. This point seems to be the height of Stephen’s
confusion until his encounter with the Bird Girl, the final step in his complete
transfiguration into the artist. While waiting for his father outside the
publichouse, Stephen wandered on to Bull to reflect and to escape the anxiety he
felt waiting to hear word about the university. He heard a few of his classmates
calling out to him and the sounds of his own name made him think of the mythical
Dedalus. Like the myth, Stephen wanted to fly up like a bird. This may be a
foreshadowing of Stephen’s leaving Ireland and flying past the
"nets" which would hold him back. He feels as though he is being
reborn into adulthood and has finally reached that point in his life where he is
capable of fulfilling his calling in life. This calling that he feels is unlike
anything that has ever spoken to him before and it invokes in him an incredible
freedom of spirit. As his mind, body and soul are still soaring from this
"ecstasy of flight", he repeatedly mentions that he is alone. He is
happy and free, but he is alone. Then he sees her. "A girl stood before him
in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic
had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird." (p.171).
The imagery in the following passage and the particular words Joyce uses to
present that imagery are very meaningful. The girl is the perfect balance
between Stephen’s two extreme ideas of women. "Her thighs, fuller and
softhued as ivory, were bared almost to the hip…"(p.171). She is
"delicate" and "pure" and she has all the qualities of
innocent virginity, but at the same time, she exposes her flesh in a sensual
manner and exhibits a "mortal beauty". Stephen’s comparison of her
to a crane and a dove shows an important relationship between the girl and
Stephen’s freedom. She was neither virgin nor whore. She was attainable.
"To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life! A wild
angel had appeared to him…" (p.172). She certainly seemed divine to
Stephen who associated her presence to the calling of a life of art. He knows
immediately that if he had been destined to a life in the church that this would
have been the kind of calling he should have experienced. Instead he realizes
that he cannot become a priest because he is unable to adhere to those
physiological restrictions demanding of the profession. He has also discovered
that to err is human and to have desires of the flesh is natural. He is no
longer disgusted by human desires and realizes how beautiful love, passion, and
devotion can be from an artist’s perspective. Stephan Dedalus’s
transformation into a "priest of the arts" is parallel to the early
life of James Joyce. Both struggle to deal with the conflicts of childhood and
adolescence to find a balance in which they can happily live. Since A Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Man is written in third person, yet employs the
characteristics of the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, the use of descriptive
language is essential to the reader’s understanding of the novel as a whole.
James Joyce excellently uses his talent to successfully communicate Stephen’s
feelings so that we, the reader, can understand the development of his attitudes
and ideals about feminine beauty.