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PHILOLOGISTJOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, LITERARY AND CULTURAL STUDIES

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KRATKOILIPRETHODNOSAOPTENJE

The1 crucial dierence between Ste-phen Dedalus! character in A Por-trait of the Artist as a Young Man

and in Ulyssesrests upon his ability to ac-knowledge the importance of experience.In A Portraithe naively believes that per-sonal genius alone is to carry him to thestatus of artist. Ulysses, a novel that beginsafter a brief self-exile in Paris, shows his re-

1 Tekst je nastao u okviru masterskog rada Stephen

Dedalus as an Irishman and a Modernist, Filolo"kifakultet u Beogradu, 2010.

alisation that becoming an artist is not apurely natural process. Stephen, havingleft Ireland and returned, can now re-ex-amine the shaping forces of custom onpersonal identity. His view of the artist isradically changed and it would be a mis-take to perceive him as nothing more thanan extension of the protagonist of A Por-trait. #Despite his continuing feeling ofisolation, he emerges as a gure unavoida-

bly conditioned by his personal past andunconsciously moving toward reconcilia-

Jelena Mandi UDK 821.111.09-31 D$ojs D$.Univerzitet u Novom Sadu DOI 10.7251/FIL1307281M

Filozofski fakultet

A PORTRAIT OF THE FAILED ARTIST.THE METAMORPHOSIS OF STEPHENDEDALUS INA PORTRAIT OF THEARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN

AND

ULYSSES1

Abstract: This paper centres on the character of Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce!snovels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses. Joyce presents the latenineteenth-century Irish society and its complex sense of historical, political and religious

forces which influence or reinforce an individual!s perception and behaviour. Through thecharacter of Stephen Dedalus, Joyce struggles to break free of Irish stereotypes, and thus,challenges the stereotypical relationships between church and state, religion and

parishioner, family and tradition. Also, the paper focuses upon the shift in the sensibility

and development of Stephen Dedalus. This shift enables him to expand psychologicallyand transcend beyond the fixity of the traditional ideas and values. The paper suggeststhat Stephen Dedalus is a modernist character " he seeks his own identity in the complexityof modern experience, choosing the hermetic life of an artist rather than accepting therole given to him by society and culture. However, his strong sense of identity later turnsout to be no more than a delusion. He remains a brooding, apathetic young man whosecreative muse seems to have let him down; he is a poet that barely rises above the level ofmediocrity.

Keywords: James Joyce,A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, StephenDedalus, modernism, identity, artist.

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A Portrait of the Failed Artist. The Metamorphosis of Stephen Dedalus inA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man andUlysses

Sargent has been trying to avoid, recalls lit-tle Stephen !on the fringe of his line, out of

sight of his prefect, out of the reach of therude feet, feigning to run now and then"(Joyce 2005: 8). These sympathetic recol-lections also suggest a softening of his feel-ings towards the family. He creates an im-pressive picture of Sargent#s mother withmusings on his own parents, !With herweak blood and wheysour milk she had fedhim and hid from sight of others his swad-dling bands" (Joyce 1984: 23). Echoes ofStephen#s youth persist throughout Nestor,

pointing out a new facet of his nature. Thechaotic situation of the classroom, his em-pathy with Sargent and Deasy#s request !towait in [his] study for a moment" (Joyce1984: 23) make Stephen look like a vulner-able, sensitive child. Moreover, his wagesand previous paydays, !three nooses round[him]" (Joyce 1984: 24), call to mind thenets he wanted to y inA Portrait, but nowpro-British rather than Irish institutionsoppress and enslave him. This claries the

nightmare that Stephen now wants to es-cape as the version of history created byBritish colonialism. His disdain for Deasy#santi-Semitism reects his reluctance to beaected by English dominance, suggestedby his attitude towards Haines#s idea onIreland and on Jews in England in the pre-ceding chapter. Although he still rejectsthe authority and insularity of his compa-triots, he is now able to perceive the impor-tance of his cultural identity.

After the examination of the

rst twochapters dealing with Stephen#s social andpersonal self, Proteus provides new in-sights into his artistic tendencies $ !arecord of aesthetic impressions emphasis-ing his facility for enlarging casual sensa-tions into lyrical descriptions" (Newmanand Thornton 1987: 130). In Telemachusand Nestor Stephen#s thoughts are gener-ated more or less on the spur of the mo-ment and based on ideas imposed by peo-

ple around him: Mulligan#s remarks aboutClive Kempthorpe create a picture of Ox-

ford students bullying a classmate; Deasy#sracial comments form an image of Jews at

the Bourse. !In this chapter similar butmore personal sketches come in rapid suc-cession as Stephen reforms his own ran-dom thoughts into arresting descriptivepassages. Like the creative eshes hinted atin the diary material from the closing pag-es of A Portrait, these interludes derivetheir signicance from their Irish back-ground, but in Ulysses Stephen#s percep-tions of that background have changed.Now there is an easy acceptance, a lessen-

ing if not a total absence of the scorn andthe apprehension that characterisedStephen#s imagined picture of Cranly#s fa-ther or his meditations on the old manwhom John Alphonsus Mulrennan en-countered" (Newton and Thornton 1987:131). Although Stephen does not seem tothink of them as serious creative impulses,these ideas refer to Stephen#s evolving ar-tistic consciousness. The depiction of animagined visit to Aunt Sally and Uncle

Richie in Strasbourg Terrace shows his fa-ther, uncle and cousin summarising thehopeless nancial situation of the Gould-ing family. This scene underlines Stephen#semerging skill as an artist while his agitat-ed soul and its turbulent imagination dis-tort his view of reality. His daydreamingbrings back his memories of Paris and ofthe expatriate Kevin Egan. Unlike Egan,Stephen has returned to his homeland andits daily routine, !My people % Their blood

is in me, their lusts my waves. I movedamong them on the frozen Liey, that I, achangeling among the spluttering resinres. I spoke to no-one: none to me" (Joyce1984: 35). The creative force of his personalexperience, social and cultural conditionsis also described through the images of thebloated body of the man drowned ninedays earlier in Dublin Bay. Stephen#s self-conscious eorts evoke his earlier mo-ments of artistic awakening in A Portrait.

The setting on Sandymount Strand re

ectsthe epiphanic site of Dollymount, although

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the gypsy woman who trudges, schlepps,trains, drags, trascines her load (Joyce

1984: 37) lacks the beauty of the birdgirl.This dierence serves to indicate a certaindevelopment in his nature. In A Portraithe behaves intuitively and solipsisticallyas a visionary exulting in what he feelswithout translating it into an experiencethat can be shared; [in Ulysses] he acts likea working artist, a creative writer who rec-ognises the possibility for deriving pro-foundly moving emotions from banal oc-currences, and he attempts to convey those

feelings through his art (Newman andThornton 1987: 132). However, his poemwith loose and chaotic phrases lacks thecoherence and assurance of his previousideas. Its stilted tone depicts the sort of artthat Stephen naively believes he shouldproduce. This self-conscious verse inevita-bly calls to mind the poem of chapter 5 of

A Portrait, written a few years earlier. Thissecond poem, derivative and immature,underlines the mediocrity established by

the rst, and it points up Stephen!s stagna-tion as an artist. Nevertheless, his artisticambitions change from the moment he ar-rives at the oces of The Freeman!s Jour-nal. In the rst three chapters of the novelStephen has remained self-absorbed withhis art, disdaining to perform for either theEnglish Haines or for the Anglo-IrishDeasy. Now among his fellow DublinersStephen moves from one public buildingto another " newspaper oce, library, hos-

pital " in search of a forum for his art, seek-ing stimulus and recognition (Newmanand Thornton 1987: 132). His actions sug-gest new dimensions of his artistic devel-opment. Leaving the newspaper oce,Stephen speaks highly of his native city,Dublin. I have much, much to learn(Joyce 1984: 106). He tries to convert his ex-periences into art, and thus, he constructshis story from his memories of the two old

women that he met on Sandymount

Strand. As he speaks, Stephen has to ig-nore various distractions and interrup-

tions. His persistence makes apparent hisstrong desire to secure his position in front

of the audience, stumbling only in his con-clusion with the two women, spitting theplum stones slowly out between the rail-ings (Joyce 1984: 109). His compositionwith the abrupt and disappointing endingcreates confusion among listeners andsadly indicates that he fails in his attemptto emulate the style of an impressive story-teller. Also, his story serves as an ironic re-mark on the Irish Literary Revival and itssentimentalism, but, at the same time, it

stands as evidence of Stephen!s reconcilia-tion with his environment. His sense ofcompetitiveness increases his ambitions.He has been listening to various oratorsand tale-tellers and he has been provokedby Crawford to demonstrate his artisticskills, I want you to write something forme, he said. Something with a bite in it.You can do it (Joyce 1984: 99). However,his story seems to be an unsatisfactory an-swer to Crawford. The Parable of the

Plums disappoints both MacHugh andCrawford for it lacks the punch line thatthey have expected. In the National Libraryhe gives a dierent kind of performanceand again he has to contend with the hos-tile remarks of another group of mockers,John Eglinton and A. E. In response to theircriticism, he collects himself and silentlycalls upon his Jesuit teachings and his re-treat master, Father Arnall. In A PortraitFather Arnall delivers his sermon about

hell, rephrasing the abstract concept of di-vine punishment. Similarly, Stephen usescomposition of place to support his argu-ment but he also uses it to make a highlypersonal point about his own position inthe society. His internal monologue un-derlines his basic concern " the inuenceof the past on his own consciousness.When A. E. comments on his prying intothe family life of a great man, Stephen si-lently examines his life in a way he had

never done inA Portrait. He contemplateshow he squandered the money in a whore-

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house and then how he is to evade theselegally incurred debts and then he nally

acknowledges the idea that his obligationis not simply to A. E. but to his Irish herit-age. Stephen!s thoughts illustrate his ownrecognition of how the past controls one!spresent. He realises that to deny the past isto deny the very self.

How now, sirrah, that pound he lent you whenyou were hungry?

Mary, I wanted it.

Take thou this noble.

Go to" You spent most of it in GeorginaJohnson!s bed, clergyman!s daughter. Agenbiteof inwit.

Do you intend to pay it back?

O, yes"

When? Now?

Well#No.

When then?

I paid my way. I paid my way.

Steady on. He is from beyant Boyne water. The

northeast corner. You owe it.Wait. Five months. Molecules all change. I amother I now. Other I got pound.

Buzz. Buzz.

But I, entelechy, form of forms, am I by memorybecause under ever-changing forms.

I that sinned and prayed and fasted.

A child Conmee saved from pandies.

I, I and I. I.

A. E. I. O. U. (Joyce 1984: 140)

Stephen!s comments about the dis-cussion in the library indicate a strongconnection between his discourse and hispersonal concerns. In depicting Shake-speare!s relations with his wife as an inte-gral part of the creative process, Stephenanalyses the same strong urges he tries tosuppress $ his sexual energy and remorsecaused by his mother!s death. His %agen-bite of inwit& over his mother is accompa-

nied by his guilt of yearning for GeorginaJohnson!s bed. Trying to articulate these

feelings, he distances himself from thepast and, once again, represents the idea

he chose at the end ofA Portrait $ escape.This time he uses Shakespeare as his sur-rogate, %He carried a memory in his walletas he trudged to Romeville whistling The

girl I left behind me& (Joyce 1984: 141). Asthe sardonic allusion suggests, escapecould not soothe Stephen!s feelings. He re-peats lines from Nestor, revealing his ownguilt, %Amor matris, subjective and objec-tive genitive, may be the only true thing inlife& (Joyce 1984: 153). With the reappear-

ance of Cranly!s attitudes, Stephen againturns to the ideas apparently rejected inAPortrait. Therefore, he can refer as much tohimself as to Shakespeare in saying %[a]man of genius makes no mistakes. His er-rors are volitional and are the portals of thediscovery& (Joyce 1984: 140). Havingclaimed his freedom from the inuence ofhistory and tradition, Stephen now seeshis past as a source of inspiration and ex-amines his previous experience in terms of

this new perspective. The discussion in theNational Library also draws out Stephen!sawareness of his isolation. His sensibilitiesare shattered by his feeling of separationand further aggravated by the knowledgeof being excluded from George Moore!sparty. His sense of rejection and his im-pulse to re-examine his personal past in-crease dramatically. Eglinton, like Mulli-gan and Nasty Roche before him, sadly re-minds Stephen of his failure, %Fabulous

arti

cer. The hawklike man. You

ew.Whereto? Newhaven-Dieppe, steeragepassenger. Paris and back. Lapwing. Ica-rus. Pater, ait. Seabedabbled, fallen, wel-tering. Lapwing you are. Lapwing be&(Joyce 1984: 156). This acknowledgement,once again, suggests his impotence to gainthe position he seeks. As Mulligan says,%Stephen has not yet learned to 'do theYeats touch! to curry the favour of thosewhom he wishes to impress& (Newman

and Thornton 1987: 136). In his last attemptto achieve public acclaim, he joins a group

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of medical students at the Holles StreetHospital. Stephen with the mien of a

frereat head of the board wants to give aperformance similar to the one he had ear-lier in the afternoon but the drunken anddisorderly behaviour of the students makesany such attempt impossible. The conver-sation turns to issues of sexuality, creativi-ty and the essence of the self but Stephenhimself remains uncertain of his subject.He wavers between physical and meta-physical ideas but settles on neither. Thisindecisiveness prevents him from further

discussion, and therefore, he tries to makehis presence felt by emulating SimonDedalus, a man he dismissed inA Portraitas a medical student, an oarsman, a tenor,an amateur actor, a shouting politician, asmall landlord, a small investor, a drinker,a good fellow, a storyteller, somebody!ssecretary, something in a distillery, a taxgatherer, a bankrupt and at present a prais-er of his own past (Joyce 2005: 279). Inspite of his desire for public attention, hestill keeps himself aloof from the heatedatmosphere of the room. However, he isexposed to the severe criticism of spongerslike Vincent Lynch when he attempts thesort of self-glorication that he had de-spised in his father.

I Bous Stephanoumenos, bullockbefriending bard,am lord and giver of their life. He encircled hisgadding hair with a coronal of vineleaves, smilingat Vincent. That answer and those leaves, Vincentsaid to him, will adorn you moretly when some-thing more, and greatly more, than a capful oflight odes can call your genius father. All whowish you well hope this for you. All desire to seeyou bring forth the work you meditate, to acclaimyou Stephaneforos. I heartily wish you may notfail them. (Joyce 1984: 309)

As the chapter progresses, Stephenfails in his attempt to be an entertainer, al-ienating himself from language and listen-ers. His desultory conversation only sug-gests more drinking, Burke!s" (Joyce 1984:

316). Just as Proteus outlines the themes ofthe opening chapters, presenting us with

Stephen!s stiing creativity, Oxen of theSun, pointing out his futile performances,

shows Stephen still trying to nd a formfor articulating his art. At this point, hispower of expression has been signicantlyblunted by physical and mental fatigue.Still, at various occasions when he wants tocapitalise on the attention of his listeners,he turns to the past in the hope of provid-ing sources for his performances. He at-tempts a reprise of his speech on aestheticswhich he had with Lynch inA Portrait, Sothat gesture, not music not odour, would

be a universal language, the gift of tonguesrendering visible not the lay sense but therst entelechy, the structural rhythm(Joyce 1984: 321). His discussion of art,however, is even denser than the previousone and his own senses are too dull to ex-cite Lynch!s interest and curiosity, Damnyour yellow stick. Where are we going?(Joyce 1984: 321). Later, when he tries to de-scribe life on the Continent, he presents adisjointed sketch of Parisian bestiality. His

description conveys little of the sensitivityof his earlier ideas, In Rodot!s Yvonne andMadeleine newmake their tumbled beau-ties, shattering with gold teeth chaussonsof pastry, their mouths yellowed with the

pusofan breton (Joyce 1984: 33). Whatwe see in the end is an apathetic Stephenshying away from human contact and anyfurther exchange. It seems that he has notyet come to grips with his strengths andweaknesses. His condition, once again, en-courages speculation as to what he may be-come # [he] is another now yet the samea server of a servant (Joyce 1984: 9). Trueto his self-absorption, he still feels the in-feriority of his position and, in the event,he is much the same as in A Portrait #self-opinionated, still in a servile position,still to the side of events and actions.

Creating the character of StephenDedalus, who in many respects representshis internal division, Joyce gives a sad com-

mentary on the futility of the times.ThroughoutA Portrait, he traces Stephen!s

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development from his early age to thepoint where he decides to cast ohis po-

litical, social and religious a liations forthe sake of a life devoted to art. Therefore,Stephen becomes wholly submerged in hisown world of solipsism; but however iso-lated he feels and however much of an in-dividualist he proclaims himself to be, henever ceases to be socially constructed. In

A Portraitwe see the concept of an ideolo-gy within one!s consciousness as well as thestruggle entailed in criticising and oppos-ing that ideology. He refuses to be a part of

that pathetic clich and the consequencesof this choice can be seen at the end of thenovel, where Stephen, having cast o thecloying prose, is reduced to the fragmen-tary recollections of the fragmentary reali-ty. We see all the forces that produce theStephen Dedalus who nally decides tostep out of the novel to forge the new con-science. Furthermore, Stephen!s glib com-ments about his environment sum up theimages of decay which have accompanied

the growth of his mind. To a certain extent,this is Stephen the romantic idealist, avert-ing his eyes from the misery of his presentcondition, escaping through art to themore agreeable reality. Also, he obscurelyresists the ideology that suppresses his in-dividuality. He perceives even his countryas an "isle of dreadful thirst# (Joyce 1984:32) paralysed with alcohol and self-regard.He grasps the nature of his own ideologicalimprisonment and servility within colonial

Ireland. This lasting mental attitude,caused by the systematic repression, leadshim to the constant tendency to indulge incertain kinds of value delusions and corre-sponding value judgements. Therefore, hecan only nd the "ineluctable modality ofthe visible# by withdrawing from every-thing known to him; he realises that theworld is "there all the time without [him]:and ever shall be, world without end#(Joyce 1984: 29). For this reason, he be-

comes alienated from the ordinary world,willingly and even contemptuously choos-

ing exile. As Kenner writes, "all his thoughtderives from himself, returns to himself#

(1987: 58). His brooding melancholy tiesinto a broader sense of personal unfulll-ment. He becomes inevitably aware of hisown subject status and the subject statusof what he calls "my people#, with whom heidenties, although with reservation. Thisbleak, inward struggle presents, onceagain, a powerful anatomy and exposure ofEnglish cultural hegemony over Ireland.Therefore, Stephen seems to be the Irishartist who speaks with "the voice of Esau#

since his birthright has fallen into thehands of the "usurper# (Platt 1998: 49-59).With a more or less mute non serviam, heresists any kind of patronage, inuence orcompromise. In his reections he cursesthe system and its stark brutality but thetrouble for him is that, however convinc-ing such reections may seem, they arestill abstract. He is trapped once more inwhat he experiences as a squalid and suf-focating Dublin reality. Also, his high-

own ambitions as an artist still await ful-lment. Actually, he remains in a state ofcreative suspension. His poetic activity inUlysses seems to be limited to scribblingwords on a piece of torn paper in Proteus,in a faint echo of an ecstatic moment of ar-tistic revelation experienced some timepreviously inA Portrait(Gibson 1996: 90).His identity mirrors his actual entrapment,the limitations which hold him back fromartistic creation, from a transformation of

the self in art. He sees himself as a servant,a dispossessed son. This self-image assertshis refusal to serve and his determinationto reject home comforts and conformity tosocial expectations. This seems to be a viv-id illustration of the self in crisis, frag-mented and uid in its desires for freedom,intellectual beauty and harmony. He grad-ually becomes aware that all his attemptsare likely to prove futile. Taking the rststep toward becoming an artist, he discov-

ers a true nature of the stories and ideolo-gies that create life in Ireland. He makes an

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extensive eort to understand the worldoutside him but his game of intellectual

brinkmanship collapses and leaves him de-luded. He is as alienated from every par-ticular image of himself as he is from thoseof others. Alone and aimless, apparentlykilling time, he realises that he cannotachieve anything new. !He is dispossessedand in servitude, for all his stance againstChurch, state and nation" (Gibson 1996:128). His fate remains bound to the domi-nant ideas of the cultural dualism he re-jects. Moreover, he no longer appears as a

heroic artist but as an exhausted and evenpitiful stereotype of the aesthete. His at-tempt at creativity having come to noth-ing, this once enthusiastic young man nowimagines himself as just another prisonerin Dublin#s !houses of decay" (Latham2003: 154). Tormenting and being tor-mented $ so is Stephen. !He has a shapethat can#t be changed."2

2 Joyce#s comments on his making of Ulysses, !Ijust got a letter asking me why I don#t give Bloom

a rest. The writer of it wants more Stephen. ButStephen no longer interests me to the sameextent. He has a shape that can#t be changed."http://www.ricorso.net/rx/az-data/authors/j/Joyce_JA/quots/quots3.htm

References

1. Gibson, Andrew (1996),Joyce!s "Ithaca#,Amsterdam - Atlanta, GA: Rodopi.

2. Joyce, James (2005), A Portrait of theArtist as a Young Man, London: Collec-tor#s Library.

3. Joyce#s Comments on Works, RetrievedAugust 14, 2010, from http://www.ricorso.net/rx/az-data/authors/j/Joyce_JA/quots/quots3.htm

4. Joyce, James (1984), Ulysses, New York:Vintage.

5. Kenner, Hugh (1987), Ulysses, Balti-more: The Johns Hopkins UniversityPress.

6. Latham, Sean (2003), !Am I a Snob":Modernism and the Novel, New York:Cornell University Press.

7. Newman, Robert D. & Thornton,Weldon (Eds.), (1987), Joyce!s Ulysses:The Larger Perspective, New Jersey:Associated University Presses.

8. Platt, Len (1998).Joyce and the Anglo-Irish: A Study of James Joyce and theIrish Literary Revival. Amsterdam -Atlanta, GA: Rodopi.

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