Joyce, James - “A portrait of the artist as a young man”

Immediately after "the Dubliners" Joyce published another novel, called "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". It is a novel, in which Joyce tries to describe the situation of the artist, who lives in an alienated world. In fact, Joyce writes about his own condition, the condition of being a writer: this is the second main topic of his interest. So in "The Dubliners" he deals with the topic of the modern citizens and the modern city, the other topic he was interested in was that of the role of the artist within the society. The society, which surrounded him, was an alienated kind of society in which he felt an outcast. This novel is semi autobiographical novel, because he used as protagonist Steven Dedalus. This is a mythical word. He is the main character and he embodies the role of Joyce himself. In other words, James uses this young

man to represent his life, because it is semi-autobiographical novel. What is it about?

The protagonist Stephen Dedalus

This novel deals with the early life of Stephen Dedalus: from his nursery school (in fact, it is not a case that the novel starts with words used by children), and then Stephen is followed up to the university career, so we have all these developments. In this case, the portrait, that is the name given to the novel, is the story of a man's relationship with authority. So Stephen, at the beginning is a child, so he accepts and never rejects what the authority suggested him to do. Little by little, with the grown up, he fights the authority, as it happens during the young age, and then at the end of the university career, he refuses the principles of the authorities. What are the authorities that he needs to fight against?

Family, religion and country. Social institutions are considered as agents of confinements, agents of net: institutions in general (school, family, religion, politics….) are traps. When you are a child, you never contradict these

institutions, you simply accept passively. Then when you grow up, with the young age, you start to contradict, to fight against these principles of confinement, to reach the point of refusing them.

The epiphany of Stephen

Stephen Dedalus is a boy, who is studying at the Jesuit school, just like Joyce, and he doesn't know what to do in his life. At the end of his university career, watching "Waving girI" in Dublin to the lake, he had his epiphany: he realised his vocation was not that of being a priest, but was that of becoming an artist. He accepted the call of life and then he refused the role of the priest. He said he wanted "to live, to err, to fall, to triumph and to recreate life out of life". So his idea was that of accepting the call of life, even if this leads to err, to fall, but also recreating life out of life.