A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 633the subject indirectly, via his interest in the busi-
ness community. This builds up to the end of the
story, when the men are gathered together for the
retreat.
Among those who attend the retreat are Mr.
Harford, the moneylender, Mr. Fanning, the reg-
istration agent and mayor of the city, and Michael
Grimes, the owner of three pawnbroker shops.
These businessmen are here at the retreat to address
their spiritual poverty, a price paid for the increase
in their worldly riches. The priest, Father Purdon,
cites Luke 16: 8–9, in which Jesus tells men to
befriend “the mammon of iniquity.” After reading
the text, Father Purdon begins by validating his
appropriation of the text: “It was one of the most
difficult texts in all the Scriptures, he said, to inter-
pret properly.” He then goes on to explain that this
command was made to men like those sitting before
him, called to serve God through their material,
business means. What he leaves out, however, is the
latter part of the verse, where Jesus says that one
cannot serve two masters at the same time: money
and God. Father Purdon chooses to interpret only
the section of the verse that he thinks the men of
the business community would appreciate, instead
of reproaching them outright, as he should do as a
responsible religious leader. His selectiveness is an
example of the “simony” Joyce mentions in “The
Sisters,” where a religious text is interpreted and
used to suit one’s ends.
Father Purdon also uses the metaphor of account-
ing to describe the relationship between these men
and God: “He came to speak to business men and
he would speak to them in a business-like way. If
he might use the metaphor, he said, he was their
spiritual accountant.” This has the effect of reducing
the relationship to a mere transaction, a balancing of
records. Ironically, God’s grace, being freely given, is
a unilateral gift and not a matter of “set[ting] right
my accounts.” These men cannot earn God’s grace,
and certainly not through befriending “the mam-
mon of iniquity.” By the end of the story, we come to
understand the superficial nature of the retreat, and
see it for what it really is: It is less about receiving
God’s grace than it is about justifying their material
and business concerns in the eyes of God.
Wern Mei Yong
joyCE, jamES A Portrait of the Artist
as a Young Man (1916)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, one of the
most celebrated novels of the 20th century, is the
coming-of-age story of Stephen Dedalus. It deals
with issues of alienation, religion, and memory.
As a very young boy in Ireland, Dedalus witnesses
the adults in his life clash over politics and religion,
two subjects forever intertwined in the life of that
country. Shortly after the novel begins, he is sent
away to Clongowes College, a boarding school run
by the Christian Brothers religious order. Here
Stephen experiences both camaraderie and brutality,
creating internal contradictions that will color his
entire life. Stephen feels both drawn to and sepa-
rate from his family, his church, his school, and his
country, and he will spend the majority of the novel
trying to resolve these contradictions and discern his
purpose in life.
As a teenager, Stephen seriously considers the
priesthood. He is deeply affected by the teachings
of the priests who surround him during his school-
ing. He alternates between extreme self-loathing
for his weakness and a desire to live what he sees
as the spartan life of a priest. As he grows older, he
begins to understand that what he is drawn to is not
religion, but the intellectual life. He ends the novel
having broken free of the constraints of his country
and his religion, and determined to understand his
place in the world.
Jennifer McClinton-Templealienation in A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man
Stephen Dedalus may well be one of the most alien-
ated characters in modern literature. From the early
part of his life, he thinks of himself as being dif-
ferent from all the others who surround him—his
family and the other boys at school. He is constantly
looking in from the outside, but rarely is the reader
given the impression that he wants to join in the
action. More often, he just wants to be left alone;
however, being left alone is not a happy state for
Stephen, either. Isolation does not offer him solace.
He feels that he is inexplicably and torturously dif-
ferent, and thus feels alienated from all around him.