A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce - Book Report/Review Example

Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: The Savior of the Human Race James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (hereinafter Portrait), centers on the religious crises of its main protagonist, namely, Stephen Dedalus. Stephen has, in fact, encountered numerous crises concerning his faith in general and his humanity in particular. And most of these religious crises that the protagonist experienced are crises associated directly to the flesh. In Stephen’s religion, for instance, sex is sacred. That is to say, believers in this Christian dominion are forbidden to make love to other people for mere mundane pleasure. Conversely, the act of sex becomes godlike or divine only when two persons who are making love are married under the Church and are doing it for the sake of following God’s law. As an unmarried man, Stephen is obliged, by virtue of his faith, to live a sacred life. However, the protagonist finds it difficult to obey the Christian doctrine of sanctity (i.e., continence); his bodily desire to make love with women -- such as the whore in the Brothel -- is greater than the desire to be virtues or holy in the eyes of the Allseeing and Allknowing God. And this is the major crisis of Stephen, namely, the crisis of the human flesh. In attempting to surpass, if not suppress, the temptation of the body, Stephen ironically approaches the Blessed Virgin Mary. Due to his pride, the protagonist fails to confess publicly his sin of the flesh. And perhaps due to his guilt, Stephen approaches the mother of God for refuge and help. Also known as the refuge of sinners, Virgin Mary is a symbol of hope among those who are lost in the road to heavenly kingdom. The paradox here, though, is the fact that Mary is a woman -- i.e., the virgin woman. A man as he is, Stephen encounters a subtle crisis in his soul when he chooses the Virgin to be his patron saint. It seems that the protagonist cannot escape the sin of the flesh in spite of his desire, if not will, to avoid it. And since the crises that Stephen possesses are categorically religious, it becomes clear to him that the resolution to these should also be spiritual or theological in nature. “I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race” (Joyce 299). That is the strong pronouncement made by the protagonist in Joyce’s Portrait. Here, Stephen appears to announce something that is very important. It must be noted that the time of the announcement or revelation pronounced by the protagonist is quite telling. Similar to the Revelation in the Bible, such statement is revealed in the last passage of the piece in question. Evidently, Stephen seems to state a pronouncement like a prophet pronouncing to his people with prophetic words about the coming of days. Pericles interprets the signifier “uncreated” as God or probably His attribute. Such signifier reminds us of the theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas pertaining to the unmoved mover, a phrase that he borrowed from Aristotle. (Joyce’s novel mentions about these two giant figures at the end of it.) Like the unmoved mover, the uncreated is, I daresay, the uncreated creator. Pericles describes Joyce’s uncreated as the “source of all experience, something permanent like God” (454). Despite certain allusion to the theology of Aquinas, the theology of Stephen Dedalus is remarkably a deviance from scholasticism prominent in the Middle Ages. What Pericles calls as “heretical view” (454), Stephen holds a theological doctrine which views the soul of man as uncreated, permanent, and godlike. It must be remembered that most prophets and/or redeemers subvert the conventional wisdom of their time; Jesus, for one, subverts the dominant teachings held by the priests of His time-period. Indeed, prophets, one way or the other, are “heretics” who proclaim the salvation of man in a different, if not revolutionary, way in contrast to the dominant thought marked in such era. And Stephen has shown, through his theological system, a distinctive variant of faith in which his race might be saved from utter destruction of the soul. On the other hand of the scale, one might challenge the rightfulness or righteousness of Stephen’s being a prophet or priest of his time and people. For one, the protagonist has sinned “not [only] once but many times and [the fact that] he knew that” (Joyce 117). Here, there appears to be no integrity in Stephen’s character. Obviously, a sinner and a saint are at a different and opposite side of the world. Thus, it is utterly unbelievable and heretical even to call himself, the sinful Stephen, as a redeemer of his race. However, one has to remember that Saint Augustine was a “cruel old sinner too” before he became a bishop and, then, a saint. Similar to the protagonist, Saint Augustine had committed a mortal sin of the flesh not just once but many times and that he knew it. Human as they are -- both Stephen and Augustine -- they sin and tumble into the depth of the abyss; nevertheless, they clearly exhibit their extraordinary will or power by overcoming the temptation of the flesh in the end. In that sense, Saint Augustine and Stephen become demigods unto themselves. Further, the journey of Stephen Dedalus is a journey, figuratively speaking, of his soul -- first to hell and then to heaven. (It is noteworthy that Dante is one of the characters in Joyce’s novel, perhaps an allusion to the writer of the Divine Comedy.) In the unfolding of the narrative, one notices the changes that occurred in the mind and heart of the protagonist; such is the essence of journey, a travel of space and probably time that moves the traveler from one thought and feeling to another. And in his travel towards the road to heaven, the soul of Stephen is fundamentally forged. The protagonist in Joyce’s Portrait perceives himself as a redeemer of the secular world and of his race. The main reason for Stephen’s proclamation, if not self-declaration, is the truth that he has encountered several religious crises in his lifetime. And in spite of these crises, the protagonist is able to conquer his bodily desire. That is, the power of the will becomes more powerful than the so-called man’s determinism. By and large, Joyce’s Portrait focuses on the spiritual crises experienced by Stephen Dedalus. And the soulful battle of Stephen against the temptation of the human flesh has created in him a conviction or conception of being the redeemer of this world and of his Irish people. Like Saint Augustine, Stephen has sinned morally and spiritually, yet, has surpassed the determinism characterized in the human body. This experience convinces Stephen that he is the rightful redeemer or seer considering that he has transformed himself into the uncreated or demigod. Similar to Saint Aquinas, Stephen has created a theological system, as expounded by Pericles, in which man transcends his human nature and, in the process, becomes equal to God. A prophet, in the end, has to possess his version of the future -- a version that his people will share with. And like Jesus, the protagonist has subverted the dominant thought of his time and place; that is to say, he offers a kind of salvation that is quite distinct to the contemporary perception of it. Thus, Stephen Dedalus is the redeeming hero of the epic-like saga of the Portrait, portraying himself as the prophet of the human race. Works Cited Lewis, Pericles. “The Conscience of the Race: The Nation as Church of the Modern Age.” A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Ed. John Paul Riquelme. New York: W. W. Norton, 2007. 451–470. Print. Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. New York: Forgotten Books, n.d. Print. Read More