A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 635clearly the comfort and safety Stephen associates
with his infancy resonates as he begins the first part
of this story, in which he will leave that safety and
encounter the world of boarding school.
Much of the first part of the text takes place at
Clongowes Wood College, a boarding school run
by Jesuit priests. Stephen’s recollections are brought
forth in a way that is often difficult to understand.
Seemingly unrelated thoughts run into one another,
dialogue (always without quotation marks) abruptly
abuts passages of description, and references to
people and places in Stephen’s past are made with
no explanation or identification. However, while
this technique can be difficult to follow and pro-
vides for a challenging text, it is far more evocative
of childhood and the past than would be a more
traditional narrative. For instance, when Stephen
gets ill from having been pushed into a ditch at
school, he continues to remember one particular
detail: that another student once saw a rat jump
into that same ditch. Stephen repeats the detail of
the rat twice, even though he did not see it himself.
He also reminds himself later, as he is starting to
feel ill and the prefect checks his head for a fever,
“that was the way a rat felt, slimy and damp and
cold.” Stephen returns again and again to the rat
that he never even saw because, when he fell into
the ditch, that thought, the thought of the big, slimy
rat swimming in the same water as him, was the first
thought that entered his head, and it would stick
with him for days after. Although instances like this
in the text might be difficult to understand because
they run counter to how narrative usually works,
they actually enhance the reader’s understanding of
Stephen’s memories, because that is how memory
usually works.
It is this complex system, the way in which
memory works, that Joyce explores so deeply in
Portrait. Images from Stephen’s past come to him
throughout his life, in times of crisis, in times of
reflection, and the narrative gives one the sense that
these images are ever changing. Frequently, Stephen
“reminds” himself who he is, saying, for instance: “I
am Stephen Dedalus. I am walking beside my father
whose name is Simon Dedalus. We are in Cork, in
Ireland” (92). That he must tell himself who he is
reflects the unreliability of his memory. As he ages,
the memories of his childhood grow less vivid and
less recognizable. He thinks of himself as a child, “a
little boy in a grey belted suit,” and is unsure what
relationship he bears to that little figure.
This confusion forces Stephen into the present,
and as the narrative progresses, he lives less and
less in his memories and more in his actions and
thoughts as they are happening. He continues to
attend school, and his studies become increasingly
sophisticated. He spends most of his time with his
friends or alone, as he gradually pulls away from
his family and the attendant memories they might
evoke. He thinks of himself as a different person,
saying of his childhood, “I was someone else then.”
As the novel ends, Stephen has moved beyond liv-
ing in the present and is now concentrating on the
future. However, the narrative gives us the sense
that this is artificial—that one cannot leave the past
behind entirely. In the last few pages, Stephen’s diary
entries as he prepares to leave home are littered with
images from the past, some arguably trivial. Such
as, “I go now to encounter for the millionth time
the reality of experience.” It is clear that he will be
unable to do that without recognizing his past.
Jennifer McClinton-TemplereliGion in A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man
Much of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
deals with Stephen Dedalus’s struggle to understand
Catholicism, its hold on him, and its proper place in
his life. For Stephen, every facet of his life is perme-
ated by religion. The indoctrination he receives at
Clongowes Wood College and later, with the Chris-
tian Brothers and the Jesuits in Dublin, leaves him
successively in fear for his mortal soul, determined
to become a priest himself, and, finally, indifferent
to the Church.
As a young boy, Stephen is taught, as are his
classmates, that he is a “lazy, idle little loafer” like
all boys. He is beaten by Father Dolan, the prefect
of studies at Clongowes, for breaking his glasses.
Father Dolan claims that Stephen must have broken
them on purpose to avoid work. Stephen knows that
this punishment is “unfair and cruel,” but because
Father Dolan is a priest, he feels conflicted. This
scene, early in the text, sets up the conflicting role