A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Style)

Style

Narrative

Like many of the novels that precede it, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is written in the third person point of view. However, this novel is anything but a traditional third-person narrative. Joyce's narrative voice is utterly unlike the omniscient (all-knowing) narrative voice found in traditional nineteenth-century novels. Earlier novelists such as Charles Dickens and George Eliot concentrated on exterior detail and attempted to give a broad overview both of the action that they were depicting and the society in which it took place. Joyce had no interest in writing this sort of novel. His narrative is narrow and tightly focused; he does not tell what is happening but rather tries to show what is happening without explaining the events that he is showing.

There is no plot as such in the novel; the narrative is not continuous but fragmented, with gaps in the chronology. The focus is exclusively on the central character, Stephen Dedalus, who is present on virtually every page. Every narrative detail is filtered through Stephen's consciousness. Joyce uses the experimental techniques stream-of-consciousness and interior monologue to let the reader see, hear, and feel what Stephen is experiencing as the action unfolds. One result of this focus on Stephen is that most of the other characters are seen only in relation to him.

In the earlier sections of the novel, Stephen is very young and is not fully aware of the significance of the situations in which he finds himself. Here the narrative mirrors the level of Stephen's intellectual development. For example, at the very beginning of the book, Stephen is a baby or, at the most, a toddler. Thus, Joyce begins the book using a simple vocabulary and imitates the style of a children's story: "Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road." A little later in the novel, young Stephen witnesses a political argument during a Christmas dinner. The dialogue of the argument, between Mr. Casey (a friend of Stephen's father) and Stephen's Aunt Dante, is reported without comment. Stephen is not aware of what the argument is about, but he knows that it is disturbing and that it disrupts the harmony of the Christmas dinner. However, Joyce the author knows that readers of his day certainly would have recognized the significance of the argument, which concerns the late Irish nationalist leader Charles Stuart Parnell. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is full of this sort of narrative duality: Joyce the author knows what is happening, the reader might know what is happening, but the central character through whom the action unfolds is not always aware of its full significance.

The narrative becomes increasingly sophisticated as Stephen matures. By the last chapter, Chapter Five, Stephen is a student at University College, Dublin. Much of the chapter is taken up with philosophical discussions of art and aesthetics. In several conversations, Stephen explains his ideas, which are based on the ideas of Aristotle and of Thomas Aquinas. Critics have remarked that Stephen's dialogue in this section reads more like a nonfiction philosophy work than like fiction.

Setting

The action of the book takes place in Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century and at the turn of the twentieth century, a span of about twenty years. Although Joyce gives specific settings for the incidents in the book, he does not give dates for the events that he is reporting. However, critics know that the events of Stephen Dedalus's life mirror events in Joyce's own childhood and young adulthood.

Specific settings include various Dedalus homes (the first outside Dublin and later ones in the city), the schools that Stephen attends (Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare and Belvedere School in Dublin), the chapel where Father Arnall delivers his fiery sermon, and, later in the book, University College, Dublin. Stephen also visits the city of Cork in southwest Ireland with his father. Both indoor and outdoor settings are used.

Regardless of the specific setting of any scene in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce gives a minimum of external description. He is more concerned with the state of mind of his main character, Stephen Dedalus, than with the external circumstances of Stephen's situation. Yet without giving lengthy descriptions of a classroom, for example, Joyce is able to create the atmosphere of a school.

Joyce himself was a Dubliner by birth and upbringing. He does not evoke the city of Dublin in as much detail here as in his earlier short story collection Dubliners or in his later novels Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Nonetheless, in A Portrait, Dublin is prominent both as a physical city and as a symbol of the center of Irish consciousness. In any case, whether he is writing about Stephen's life at school, at home, or at large in Dublin or in particular neighborhoods elsewhere in Ireland, Joyce's larger subject is always Ireland — a subject that he renders in an ambivalent stance.

Structure

A Portrait of the Artist is divided into five chapters. Each chapter deals with a different period in the first twenty years of the central character, Stephen Dedalus. Each also addresses a specific theme related to Stephen's development as an artist.

Chapter One takes Stephen from his infancy into his first years at school. In this chapter, Stephen becomes aware of the five senses and of language itself, and he takes the first steps to assert his independence. Chapter Two includes his awareness of his family's declining fortunes and his move from Clongowes Wood School to Belvedere School in Dublin. It ends with his sexual initiation in the arms of a prostitute. In the third chapter, Stephen is preoccupied with his sin and the possible consequences of his sin. The fourth chapter takes place at Belvedere School. Stephen attempts to understand the precepts of his religion and to lead a life in accordance with those precepts. However, he recognizes that his independent nature will not allow him to serve as a priest of the Church. Instead, he will become an artist, a "priest of eternal imagination." In Chapter Four, Stephen takes further steps to formulate his aesthetic theory. He also makes a final declaration of independence from his friends, his family, his religion, and his country.

Within each chapter there are several distinct, self-contained scenes or episodes. These episodes are, in effect, "portraits." Each episode centers around or culminates in an epiphany — a moment of euphoric insight and understanding that significantly contributes to Stephen's personal education. The epiphany often occurs during an otherwise trivial incident, and is the central organizing feature in Joyce's work. However, these epiphanies are undercut by "anti-epiphanies" — moments of disillusion or disappointment that bring Stephen back to earth. Each shift between epiphany and anti-epiphany is accompanied by a shift in the tone of Joyce's language. The epiphany scenes are generally written in a poetic and lofty language. By contrast, the language in the anti-epiphany scenes emphasizes less noble aspects of life. Taken together, Joyce uses the give-and-take shift between epiphany and anti-epiphany to show the paradoxes of life.

Punctuation

The author's punctuation is not normally an issue in a discussion of a work of fiction. Up until Joyce, most English-language novelists used standard punctuation. As part of his effort to create an entirely new type of novel, however, Joyce employed unusual punctuation. Immediately noticeable in Portrait is the fact that there are no quotation marks. Instead, Joyce uses a long dash at the beginning of a paragraph where he wishes to indicate speech by a character. (One effect of this technique is that the reader is not immediately able to tell what portions of a paragraph might be part of the narrative apparatus rather than the speaking voice of a particular character.) Joyce is also sparing in his use of commas. Many of his longer sentences appear to be "run-on" sentences. He does this deliberately to show the "run-on" nature of a character's thoughts — a technique known as the "stream of consciousness."

Symbolism

Critics have remarked on Joyce's unique combination of realism and naturalism on the one hand and symbolism on the other. Joyce's realistic and naturalistic approaches are evident in his pretense that he is presenting things as they are. At the same time, he uses symbolism extensively to suggest what things mean.

The five senses — sight, sound, taste, smell, touch — are recurrent symbols throughout A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Stephen's reliance on the five senses is signaled in the book's first few pages. Here we are made aware of the way his father looks to Stephen (sight), the songs that are sung to him and the clapping of Uncle Charles and Dante (sound), the feeling when he wets the bed (touch), and the reward of a "cachou" (cashew — taste) from Dante. Joyce considered the five senses to be indispensible tools for the literary artist. Of these, the sense of sight is most prominent. The importance of sight — and its fragility — is a recurring motif throughout the novel. This reliance on, and fear for, sight is embodied in the phrase "the eagles will come and pull out his eyes," which Dante says to Stephen after his mother tells him to apologize for something. Stephen makes a rhyme, "pull out his eyes / Apologise." (Significantly, Joyce suffered from eye problems later in his life, and was to undergo several eye operations.) At various points in the novel, Stephen refuses to apologize for his actions and decisions, even at the risk of perhaps losing his vision, metaphorically. For example, in Chapter One he listens to Mr. Casey's anecdote about spitting in a woman's eye. At Clongowes school, Father Dolan punishes Stephen for having broken his glasses. In Chapter Four, Stephen attempts a mortification of the senses to repent for his earlier sins.

Religious symbols abound. There are numerous references to various elements and rites of Roman Catholicism: the priest's soutane, the censor, and the sacraments of communion and confession. Bird symbolism is prominent too. In addition to the eagles mentioned above, there is Stephen's school friend and rival Heron, who is associated with the "birds of prey." Stephen later thinks of himself as a "hawklike man," a patient and solitary bird who can view society from a great height but who remains aloof from the world that he views.