Portrait of an Artist

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 hear election addresses" (Joyce 30-31). Separation of church and state is an established part of the governance of many countries but still those in positions of religious authority try to influence the political positions of their parishioners and this violation of their position is what Joyce is most angry about. Other characters like Dante feel that it is acceptable for the priest to do this because the religious shapes the morals and from there the legislation of a people because everything goes back to God.

As an adult, Stephen has decided that he is no longer interested in becoming part of the Catholic Church. He has become disenfranchised with the religious world as he has with most established authorities in the world. Joyce writes of Stephen, "On Sunday mornings as he passed the church door he glanced coldly at the worshippers who stood bareheaded, four deep, outside the church, morally present at the mass which they could neither see nor hear. Their dull piety and the sickly smell of the cheap hair-oil with which they had anointed their heads repelled him from the altar they prayed at" (117). Stephen sees people going to church regularly in order to pay what he feels is lip service to God. The people cannot see the priest nor can they hear him preach but at the same time they are gaining as much from the church service as they could inside, at least from Stephen's point-of-view. Men oil their foreheads and bow their heads not because they feel God within but because they have been trained to take part in the traditions and customs but they are pious and good people while he is not because he sees the truth of their worship.