How is Stephen’s development into a
mature artist presented in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man? /Trace the
evolution of Stephen into a creative personality/ Discuss the significance of
the title of Joyce’s novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man./ How does
Stephen reject nation, religion and love in favour of the life of an artist?/
Discuss A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as an autobiographical novel./ How far A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man fits as a Bildungsroman./ Discuss A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as a novel of growth.
A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man belongs to the kind of fiction known as the ‘Bildungsroman’, the
novel of formation (the novel of growth), describing a character’s struggle
from childhood towards maturity. Such novels had been written before: for
example, Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, Meredith’s The Ordeal of Richard
Feveral, Samuel Butler’s The Way of All Flesh. The subject (The
theme) of these novels is sensitive youth who is at first shaped by his
environment but who soon becomes conscious of its pressure and rebels against
it, in order to try to find his own identity or individuality. The title of the
novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man consists the similar
subject (theme) - the portraiture of the development of a young man as an
artist through various events. It is the development of a young Stephen from
‘creature’ to ‘creator’. The book necessarily describes the agony of the
artist, his sensitivity, his passion, his superciliousness, his necessary
irresponsibility, his struggling to raise himself above his companions.
The novel is the story of how a gifted, imaginative and
brilliant misfit liberates himself from the chains of family, church and
country, and starts as an exile to achieve his vocation. The first chapter is a
record of Stephen’s childhood. Here the fear of authority is seen in the
domestic atmosphere. ‘He hides under the table’ and the only way to escape
punishment was ‘to submit’. The little boy is surrounded by grownups who have
rigid readymade standards of conduct to which he must conform. However, Stephen
scores a triumph when, often being unjustly beaten by Father Dolan, he reports
the cruelty to the rector and obtain the latter’s support. He feels happy and
free.
The second chapter is a record of Stephen’s career to the
age of sixteen. He finds himself overwhelming with exhortations urging him to
be athletic and patnotic, a good son, a decent fellow, and a good catholic
above all. He finds him only escape from all this in day dreaming. Mean while
the demands of his growing body subdue everything else and his passion is
quenched in the arms of a harlot. He feels suddenly ‘strong and fearless and
sure of himself’. The natural man achieves a temporary fulfillment here.
