A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - Book Summary

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young man

is a novel written by James Joyce.

First published in serial form between

1914 and 1915,

the book is profoundly autobiographical.

It Chronicles the life of Joyce´s
fictional persona,

Stephen Dedalus, from early childhood,

culminating in his decision to leave
Irland and pursue writing.

The novel shows how Stephen´s artistic
sensibility develops alongside

his intellectual and spiritual growth,

from his early fascination with words
and sounds

to his mature theories about art and
beauty.

Like Joyce´s later work,

Portrait of the Artist helped
pioneer

the "stream of consciousness"
style,

relying on sensual imagery

and even baby talk

to represent the fluid nature of
human thought

from one character´s point of view.

The book opens on three-year-old
Stephen Dedalus,

the youngest of ten children

in turn-of-the- century Ireland.

Stephen lives with his mother, Mary,

a devout Catholic;

his governess, Dante,

who is fanatically religious as well;

his lively uncle Charles;

and his father, Simon,

whose financial ineptitude

forces the family from one dilapidated
home

to another.

Stephen is a sensitive and imaginative boy

deeply influenced by the tides of
political

and religious thought

that surround him.

Soon,

we leap forward in time

as young Stephen begins boarding
school

at Clongowes.

At six years old,

Stephen is terrible homesick,

un-athletic

and socially awkward,

and therefore,

an easy target for bullies.

One day, a larger boy named Wells

pushes him into a cesspool,

and Stephen becomes ill from the
filthy water.

While he fantasizes about how sorry

everyone will be when he dies,

he decides not to tell on the boy,

earning his respect from his peers.

That Christmas,

Stephen is eating at the adult´s table

for the first time when a terrible
argument breaks out.

On one side,

Stephen´s father along with his friend,
John Casey

argue on behalf of Charles Parnell,

an Irish nationalist who was denounced by
the church for seeking a divorce.

Dante, oh the other hand,

argues on behalf of the church,

as a devout Catholic,

she is unsympathetic to
divorces.

The fight is vicious,

ending in tears

and leaving young Stephen confused
about his place in the world,

as he struggles to understand the complex
conflict

between loyalty to family,

religious authority,

and nationalist ideals.

In his preteens,

Stephen is forced to withdraw from
Clongowes

when his family's poverty forces a moved
to Blackrock.

There,

Stephen enjoys long walks with his uncle
Charles.

While Stephen continues to feel
different

from those around him,

he loves adventure books like
The Count of Monte Cristo

and joins neighbor boys on imaginary
quests.

Around age 14,

Stephen and his family move to Dublin,

where Simon manages to enroll Stephen at
Belvedere College

a private school run by Jesuits.

Stephen comes into his own at Belvedere,

becoming a reluctant leader,

acting in school plays,

and winning essay contests,

though he continues to feel isolated

and misunderstood.

Around this time,

Stephen meets a girl named Emma Clere;

while she comes to embody Stephen´s
feminine ideal,

she is less a flesh and blood person
to him than a muse.

Around this time,

Stephen grows increasingly obsessed
with sex,

engrossed by lurid fantasies.

One day,

squandering a cash prize, he won as part
of an essay contest,

Stephen goes with a prostitute.

It is his first sexual experience.

Soon,

going with prostitutes becomes a habit
for Stephen,

and he enters a period of deep
confusion

and spiritual paralysis.

While he considers his actions sinful,

he also feels strangely numb

towards his own hypocrisy.

These feelings come to a head during
Belvedere´s annual,

three-day spiritual retreat,

where Stephen hears three sermons
on the torments of hell.

Terrified of eternal damnation,

he repents of his old behavior,

becoming almost fanatically religious.

Nevertheless,

as time goes by,

Stephen grows frustrated by
Catholic doctrine.

When a rector suggests that he consider
becoming a priest,

Stephen realized that the religious life

is not for him.

One day,

while walking on the beach,

he sees a girl whose beauty

strikes him with the force of spiritual
revelation.

To his own surprise,

he no longer feels ashamed for admiring
the body

and decides to live life to the fullest.

Years pass,

and Stephen attends university in Dublin.

Although surrounded by friends,

Stephen continues to feel isolated and
bored,

his mind wandering to theories on
beauty

and aesthetics during lectures.

Soon,

Stephen comes to regard Ireland,

religion,

and his family as a trap from which
he must escape.

In his diary,

he declares his artistic mission:

´to forge in the smithy of my soul the
uncreated conscience of my race.´

The book ends as Stephen decides to leave
Ireland to pursue writing;

like the mythical Dedalus,

he will escape on wings of his own making.