A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce uses several narrative techniques, but he largely relies on a third-person narrative that mirrors the inward development of Stephen Dedalus, the...

Epiphany is traditionally a manifestation of God’s presence in the world. The literary device was originally used by Christian writers and philosophers to demonstrate how people were enlightened by...

In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce is experimenting with literary techniques, especially the use of stream of consciousness. He uses the third person to describe the...

Stephen Dedalus makes it abundantly clear that he has no time for the country of his birth. In Ancient Greek mythology Dedalus was the father of Icarus, the man who died after flying too near to...

The implications of Stephen's invocation at the end of the narrative reflect how he rejects what he sees as external imposition upon his identity. Earlier in Chapter 5, Stephen had emerged to this...

Sexuality is primarily presented as both CIS/straight desire and as deeply conflicted. Once the teenaged Stephen Dedalus begins to experience sexual arousal, he can barely stop thinking about his...

The ending of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is fairly complex, and it takes a bit of time to sift through its many layers. But, on the surface, the essential meaning that...

Stephen Dedalus's unusual surname is entirely appropriate given his ambitions in life. Like his Greek near-namesake Stephen wants to soar high into the sky. Not literally, of course, but...

This quotation comes from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. It forms part of Stephen Daedalus's interpretation of St. Thomas Aquinas's aesthetic theory, which he patiently...

The limited third person narration allows the reader to see the thoughts and feelings of Stephen Dedalus alone as the novel progresses, and these emotions are expressed in the third person, giving...

James Joyce is considered a master of the Bildungsroman, the German word for what is essentially equates to a coming-of-age story. However, when examining A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,...

This passage is extremely important to the book as a whole. It occurs in chapter 4, when Stephen has been mulling over what path to take in life. Among other things, he has been contemplating...

The overall setting of this novel is Dublin and its environs at the turn of the twentieth century. There are the various Daedalus family homes, which dwindle in size and grandeur as the family's...

In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce describes the variety of views about women Stephen Dedalus subscribes to as he matures personally, religiously and artistically. In his early...

In James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus leaves Ireland for Europe to become an artist. In the process, he turns his back on his home country and religion, both of...

One day in class, while Stephen and his fellow pupils are being taught by Father Arnall, Father Dolan, the head teacher, comes bursting in, brandishing a pandybat, a stout leather strap used for...

This quote comes from Chapter 1 of this excellent novel, which is made rather difficult to understand because of the way that, stylistically, Joyce is trying to achieve something that is rather...

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was written partly as a conscious divergence from the realist style that was dominant in the 19th century. In the realist mode of literature, the author's...

If we took Joyce's discussion in his work, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," then epiphany has to be a moment where one gains insight into oneself and their place in the world. A part of...

Stephen can only understand his own sense of self through the idea of escape in the narrative. Simply put, Ireland is a land that is filled with more of "yesterdays" than tomorrows for Stephen....

At the beginning of the novel Stephen is sensitive, intelligent, and pious. He seems destined for a life in the church. It isn't until much later in the novel that other characteristics such as...

In A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, as in many of Joyce's other works, the idea of the "woman as a mother" is subtly interwoven into the text. Namely, Stephen Dedalus's own mother is a...

Simply put, stream of consciousness is a style of narration that seeks to mirror the messy, random, often illogical form of human thought. Thus, stream of consciousness often defies conventional...

At the end of chapter 2, Stephen Dedalus has sex with a prostitute. This is not an incident that Stephen takes lightly: during the encounter, Stephen is full of acute emotions. The narrator...

The story with which the novel opens is one which Stephen's father told him, as is explained in the second paragraph. The story should then be read in the voice of a father speaking to his son: the...

A book entitled The Future of Modernism, edited by Hugh Witemeyer, answers this very question:"In the notebooks of 1903-4 Joyce articulated the aesthetic principles that Dedalus defends . . ....

Stephen is initially shown as having an active fantasy life regarding sex but limited actual experience, which he then gains. In contrast, his religious education and related social values are a...

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce is chiefly concerned with describing the development of Stephen Dedalus not only as a young man, but also as a writer and an artist. In many...

In order to answer this question, we first need to explain what a Lacanian psychoanalytical interpretation is. Jacques Lacan was a French psychoanalyst who followed concepts set out by Freud....

Davin, a "peasant student", has been taught from childhood to "(worship) the sorrowful legend of Ireland". A "young fenian", he is a member of the Gaelic League,...

In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce portrays the creative awakening of Stephen Dedalus, often regarded as Joyce’s alter-ego. Through his experiences with family, education, and...

Stream of consciousness is critical to James Joyce’s writing in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It is a style of writing that is perhaps the most important artistic tool that Joyce gave to...

There are a few examples that illustrate the utilization of epiphany in the novel “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". In chapter 1, Stephen encounters certain contentions that create...

One of the most important events regarding Stephen's theory of aesthetics is when he explains it to his friend Lynch in Chapter 5. In this section, it is evident that he is still trying to get his...

The main female character in this important novel is that of Emma, who only seems to appear as part of fragments of Stephen's earliest childhood memories. He certainly is never able to connect with...

In James Joyce’s influential modernist bildungsroman A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce portrays the life of young Stephen Dedalus as he struggles with his simultaneous religious and...

Point of view is an extremely important aspect of Joyce's Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. It's written in third person limited, but those limits imposed on the initial chapter are expanded to...

The third person point of view is utilized in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Nevertheless, this does not mean there is an omniscient narrative voice like in many literary works before Joyce...

Then at the door of the castle the rector had shaken hands with his father and mother, his soutane fluttering in the breeze, and the car had driven off with his father and mother on it. They...

In chapter 5, Stephen and the dean of studies at the university have a conversation about art and beauty. According to the dean, “The object of the artist is the creation of the beautiful.” At the...

James Joyce was obsessed with both Irish history and Irish politics, and he used the two topics extensively in all of his works. In his novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, one of the...

The narrator's voice is third-person (but omniscient, which means he/she is all-knowing). An omniscient narrator can see into the minds of the character or characters. In this novel, Joyce's...

Stream of consciousness is a style of writing that strives to mimic the actual flow of real human thought. Often, stream of consciousness narratives are messy, lack a logical structure, and/ or...

In true modernist form, Joyce is seeking to define his own method of narration. In the absence of any other accepted structure of narration, Joyce's stream of consciousness helps to allow the...

One of the ways in which characterisation is presented in this groundbreaking classic is through the point of view. This novel differs so strongly from others of its ilk because Joyce deliberately...

James Joyce was not a Marxist and does not explicitly endorse political perspectives in his writings. His aversion to political activism has generated criticism by progressive scholars, even those...