Ch 3 - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 10:55 pm
Ch 3 - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
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Do you think Joyce wants the reader to feel this way; frustrated, angry, and disbelieving? From chapter one, Stephen is conflicted about how he should feel about religion and God, however, he makes a great discovery. When Stephen is beaten unfairly by a priest because of the loss of his glasses, Stephen thinks, "this is not right, the priest is wrong". Is Stephen saying here, "religion is not right, and God is wrong"?geo wrote:I have to say, the lengthy description of hell and all of its torments is wearing me down. This passage is largely what our young artist protagonist, Steven Dedalus, hears during a series of sermons from Father Arnall during a retreat. Dedalus feels extreme guilt for having lustful thoughts and acting on them with some of the local whores. And so the reader feels the extent of Dedalus' torment and gets a taste of his conflict between worldly pleasures and sin. But the sheer extent of hell, its physical and mental components, becomes rather absurd. How can it make sense that a person be punished to this extent for merely having a libido and acting upon it? As a Catholic, now estranged from the church, I find this Puritan-esque mentality rather aggravating and difficult to read.
With a character named Dante, I was waiting for Joyce to bring "The Inferno" into "Portrait". The character Dante is represented as over the top and unreasonable in her beliefs on religion. Stephen at a very tender age listened to her ranting at Christmas dinner. This character supplies Stephen with religious dogma. Dante is very passionate about her views and at one point says that Ireland is full of priests, priests are always right, and that is the way it has to be. Stephen is conflicted. When he went to the rector to complain about his beating and the rector agreed with Stephen, I had to smile and felt like hooraying with his classmates. That took a lot of guts, and a lot of doubt about the catholic religion.geo wrote:Interestingly enough, the depiction of hell is based on Dante's Inferno being discussed elsewhere on BT. I think Joyce gets carried away here. It's amazing to me that people could have believed this stuff.
I was wondering if Joyce presents a dogmatic view of religion in order to show the depth of Stephen's despair. Maybe Stephen will eventually come to have a more nuanced faith, but right now he's having a deep, spiritual crisis and perhaps must see things in black and white. The extended sermon about hell hits him pretty hard.Suzanne wrote: Do you think Joyce wants the reader to feel this way; frustrated, angry, and disbelieving? From chapter one, Stephen is conflicted about how he should feel about religion and God, however, he makes a great discovery. When Stephen is beaten unfairly by a priest because of the loss of his glasses, Stephen thinks, "this is not right, the priest is wrong". Is Stephen saying here, "religion is not right, and God is wrong"?
This description of hell reminds me of John Galt's speech in, "Atlas Shrugged". This speech was excruciating for me to read, however, it was the whole point of the novel. Geo's word for this description as absurd, is it possible that Joyce wants the reader to view hell and the restrictions of the catholic church as absurd?
Oh no! Not three hours!!—A sin, an instant of rebellious pride of the intellect, made Lucifer and a third part of the cohort of angels fall from their glory. A sin, an instant of folly and weakness , drove Adam and Eve out of Eden and brought death and suffering into the world. To retrieve the consequences of that sin the Only Begotten Son of God came down to earth, lived and suffered and died a most painful death, hanging for three hours on the cross.
I first described Joyce's prose as whimsical, but that was in chapter one. The beginning of each chapter is Stephen a little bit older, by chapter three I get the feeling that he is a teen. The thoughts going through a teenaged boy are bound to be confusing, at times I have had to stop reading and try to orient myself as to what is going on. The dialogue from Stephen, chapter by chapter is going to mature as Stephen matures, therefore the writing may get deeper and more thought provoking. The stream of consciousness style of writing is difficult to read, but what I enjoy about "Portrait" compared to William Faulkner's stream of consciousness works, "Sound and Fury", for example, is "Portrait" is semi-autobiographical. So as I read, the stream of consciousness is coming from James Joyce, we are looking straight into Joyce's mind as he ages, this is what is compelling to me about the novel.geo wrote:Using his famous stream-of-conscious technique, Joyce lets us feel what Stephen is feeling, a very interior view. At this stage in the novel, Joyce has pretty much jettisoned almost all external events in order to show us the interior of Stephen's mind. It's not easy to read..
I think we have to remember the age of Stephen chapter by chapter. His feelings and views are bound to change as he ages.geo wrote:I was wondering if Joyce presents a dogmatic view of religion in order to show the depth of Stephen's despair. Maybe Stephen will eventually come to have a more nuanced faith, but right now he's having a deep, spiritual crisis and perhaps must see things in black and white. The extended sermon about hell hits him pretty hard.
Nope, I guess she served her purpose in Stephen's early childhood, but she sure had an impact on him.geo wrote:You make a good point about the Dante character (who seems to have disappeared. Do we see her again?)
This changes everything. I feel like I'm feeling around the edges of this work, not quite getting it, but that's okay. Thanks for your help.Suzanne wrote:I think we have to remember the age of Stephen chapter by chapter. His feelings and views are bound to change as he ages.