Book Review: ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ma’ by James Joyce – The Ultimate Awakening of Stephen Dedalus

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Written by the greatest author of the 20th century, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is James Joyce's masterpiece. This novel emphasizes the Irish protagonist's awakening and growth in terms of sexuality, intellect, and religion. His work can be classified within the bildungsroman – 'a novel about the moral and psychological growth of the main character', as defined by Merriam Webster.

Introduction

Book’s Name: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Author’s Name: James Joyce

Genre: Fictional Autobiography

Language: English

About the Author

The Irish writer James Joyce has mostly known for his use of the stream of consciousness literary technique. He mainly focused on the production of novels, poems, and short stories. His major work, the Ulysses, has greatly marked his career and became one of the greatest literary works of all time.

About the Book

The novel follows Stephen Dedalus's escape and, perhaps, rejection of all moral and religious values set by his family, his country, and his religion. This book covers in great detail the evolution of Stephen from childhood to youth. It focuses on his search for his true self and his real identity all of which art allowed doing. 

It is, in fact, James Joyce's life depiction in which he used a great amount of imagination and fiction. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is not solely a deep look into Joyce's life and his younger self's experiences, but a very remarkable and fascinating production of modernist fiction. 

This is a work of art that explored how an artist could independently search for his meaning in life and build his personality autonomously without letting his community and family think or decide on his behalf.

Major Themes

1. The Emergence of Self-Consciousness: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man makes a very interesting read thanks to the choice of the stream of consciousness writing style which heads toward the complete transfer of everything that happens inside the character's mind describing their thoughts and feelings. 

This is, especially, appealing to the reader since it avoids knowing these important elements from an outside point of view that knows little in comparison to the actual character who is going through all of that. This technique allowed for portraying Stephen's mind evolution. At the very beginning of the novel, Stephen appeared as a child who could talk about his life in a very simple language. 

When he became a bit younger, religion played a major role in Stephen's teenage life and he could, then, speak more clearly using an adult's manners and way of thinking. However, it was until he got into the university that Stephen achieved his full independent identity with all its aspects with the use of his rational thinking only.

2. The Becoming of the Artist: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man shows what it takes to become an artist. At the very end of the novel, Stephen decides to escape his community leaving his family and loved ones, and move to another place in the will of becoming an artist. This suggests that Joyce sees art as an asylum, especially, after taking the risk to rebel over all the political, religious, and parental restrictions he was living by.

Famous Quotes

“I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use -- silence, exile, and cunning.”

 “You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too.”

“The object of the artist is the creation of the beautiful. What the beautiful is is another question.”

“You can still die when the sun is shining.”

“To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life. A wild angel appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory. On and on and on and on!”          

The Bottom Line

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a novel written by the Irish author James Joyce. It talks about the intellectual, religious, and sexual awakening of the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, a fictional representation of Joyce himself. 

Stephen pursues questioning his surroundings including the teachings of the catholic church and Irish morals he grew by until he finally decides to flee Ireland for becoming an artist.

My ratings for the book: 5 on 5

You can get your copy from Amazon.

Written By – Khawla ACHIT HENNI