Understanding the Approach of an Artist

Gertrude Stein is a very enigmatic and perplexing author; however that is part of her charm. She brings the art form of writing to life by focusing on the sound, diction, and syntax of her words. The experience is meant to be confusing for the reader, one is expected to mull over the concepts. As a Modernist writer Stein wanted to create something new. In order for Stein to create new concepts she had to put much thought into the development of her writing; thereby expecting the reader to put in the same amount of thought into understanding her writings. To find my own meaning of Stein's literature I reread her poems several times and sometimes even aloud. This technique helped me to internalize her work and fully appreciate her use of repetition and alliteration. Additionally, I found The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas very useful in my efforts to piece together an understanding of Stein. The autobiography was much clearer cut and gave explicit details about Stein which contributed to my better understanding her works.

Repetition plays a huge role in Stein's characterizations in both The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and “Tender Buttons”. She often repeats the same phrase multiple times to place emphasis or set up a situation of a play on words. Stein also repeats the same phrase but in a juxtaposing manner to question validity or authority. The first time I noticed Stein's affinity for repetition was in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. She constantly mentions Alice's desire to write a book about all the wives of geniuses she has met ( 13, 237). This focus caused me to look for such a pattern in her other works, such as “Tender Buttons”. I noticed that Stein likes variety and chooses different techniques for each poem; however her use of repetition is quite poignant. For example, in the poem “A Long Dress” (467) the word “current” appears three times. The positioning of the word is also slightly indented each time it is repeated. I believe this is to create a visual current to match the flow of the dress. The image of a current also reminded me of the waves of an ocean and the fluidity of a current.

Stein also employs the use of alliteration to help her audience connect further with her work. By utilizing alliteration Stein gives the words a floating quality. The words seem light as air and flow from one to the other. While her words do achieve a lightness when she uses alliteration, this technique also causes the reader to constantly have to reread her passages to extrapolate a meaning. One such example is in “Suppose An Eyes” (475) when Gertrude writes, “ Little sales ladies little sales ladies little saddles of mutton.” The alliteration is apparent within this quote; however the meaning is not abundantly clear. Attempting to understand this poem is a great feat which still alludes me as does the meaning of some of her other poems. Although, I believe Stein wanted us to find our own personal understanding to most of her poems, I believe she knew that we would not all make a connection to every single poem she wrote, because if we did then it would be conventional art. Another example of alliteration in “Tender Buttons” is in “This Is This Dress, Aider” (476) when Stein writes, “Aider, why aider why whow, whow stop touch aider whow, aider stop the muncher, muncher munchers.” The alliteration here is that of a parallel structure between the a and the w and the a and the m with the s and t sounds as a break in the middle. I think Stein wanted to create an emphasis of questioning in this line. Why is the aider not stopping at any point or even possibly preforming his duty? The sounds of whow being repeated and muncher also help the reader to process her thought, because they are impressed upon the mind.

To conclude, Gertrude Stein uses repetition and alliteration to her advantage in her works. She always enhances the meaning of a simple object, food, or room. Like many Modernists, such as Virginia Woolf, I believe her goal was for the reader to realize how much we take for granted in life. Rather than just simply state that we should not abuse the world around us; Stein takes the form of an artist and truly illustrates this principle through her poetry. I think the way to understand Stein was best stated in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas when she wrote, “Miss Stein and he seemed to be full of hidden meanings” (14).

To Be or Not to Be, Might That Be Our Question?

From early on in life Gertrude Stein saw a special role for herself, as she stated, “I always wanted to be historical, from almost a baby on.” In The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, speaking to her readers through the voice of her partner, Stein uses Alice as the mechanism through which she expounds upon her personal qualities on many occasions and in a great number of references. She proclaims herself to be one of “three first class geniuses” of which Alice claims, “(I)n no one of the three cases have I been mistaken.”

There is no denying our author’s intelligence- Radcliffe and Johns Hopkins- nor her associations with the notables of Modernism’s artists and writers- Picasso and Hemingway. How much of the acclaim she so sought for her own works is a result of her literary achievement and how much is “fame by association” with the greatness of others at her salon and gallery at 27 rue de Fleurus?

I read for two main purposes- information or entertainment. In my first attempts to read Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons, I was stymied time and again to fulfill either of these purposes. It demands great patience to read this piece. Her style is so repetitive, like a stuttering of the mind, and often illogical, in fact nonsensical. It is idiosyncratically punctuated and grammatically confusing, as if the reader were not struggling enough already and the author would further hinder rather than aid the comprehension of her text. However, in our reading of the second Stein selection, The Autobiography, the author gives us some clues in understanding her inimitable style. She explains to Alice that “I feel with my eyes and it does not make any difference to me what language I hear, I don’t hear language, I hear tones of voice and rhythms.” Later on she further explains that she does not care much for music “… which may seem strange because it has been so often said that the appeal of her work is to the ear and to the subconscious.” Rather Stein tells us that she “felt a desire to express the rhythm of the visible world…” at which she “looked, listened and described.”

So perhaps that was her very objective- to have the reader not try to make sense of and comprehend the substance, but rather to sense the rhythm and sound of her writing. So with that renewed purpose, I reread select portions and found the pages filled with alliterations as well as some interesting word play. In “Rooms” she writes, “Cadences, real cadences, real cadences and a quiet color. Careful and curved, cake and sober…” Recurring words of color as well as references to landscapes and many objects in her surroundings are perhaps literary parallels to her artistic friends’ paintings. Her writing about a long dress in “Objects” so vividly describes the article of clothing that one can picture it in its “serene length, it is there and a dark place is not a dark place, only a white and red are black, only a yellow, and green are blue, a pink is scarlet, a bow is every color.” I interpret this to mean that this particular dress is so lively in its color that it changes the feeling in the room from a dark into a vibrant atmosphere.

On her deathbed, after asking, “What is the answer?” and getting no response, Gertrude Stein leaves us with the parting words, “In that case, what is the question?” Perhaps our playing on Hamlet’s soliloquy alludes to it, “To be, or not to be -- that is the question.” Is Gertrude Stein to be or not to be the genius of her self-proclamation? I believe that is the very personal question each of us will have to answer as she sees fit.

Stephen and The Muses

In James Joyce’s semi-autobiographical novel, A Portrait of the Artist as AYoung Man, he references Greek literature by naming his character Steven Dedalus, in reference to the classical Greek myth of Daedalus, the man who decided to build wings of wax for himself and his nephew, Icarus, in order to escape their prison on the island of Crete. By doing so, Joyce uses this reference to inform the course of his character’s life throughout the novel, connoting that Steven Dedalus is using his creative power to escape the “prison” created for him by the Catholic religion.

However, this is not the only time Joyce uses classical Greek myth to shape the course of his story. Interspersed throughout the novel are four women who are formative figures in Dedalus’s development as an artist; these women parallel four of the nine muses described by Plutarch as inspiring creative productivity. The women in A Portrait help guide Dedalus in his quest for connection to true artistic transcendence, and help him come to a new understanding of his soul. During Dedalus’s life, his experiences with the whore, the worship of the Virgin Mary, help him re-imagine himself in multiple lenses. In turn, this inspires him to develop different aspects of his personality.

When these women appear in the text, their presentation evokes the particular muse they’re supposed to parallel. For instance, the whore is portrayed as a sensual being very much in touch with her own sensuality; this evokes the muse Erato, who presided over erotic poetry. When Dedalus encounters the whore, she is depicted as a woman who possesses a mystical power over his every action, inspiring him to commit deeds that were previously taboo to him because of his Catholic religion. For instance, when Dedalus is with her, “His lips would not bend to kiss her… With a sudden movement, she bowed his head and joined her lips to his and he read the meaning of her movements in her frank uplifted eyes” (Joyce 108). When she uses her physicality and sensual nature to compel him, Dedalus responds by “surrendering himself to her… conscious of nothing in the world but the dark pressure of her softly parting lips. They pressed upon his brain… between them he felt an unkown and timid pressure, darker than the swoon of sin…” By couching Dedalus’s movements in terms of passivity and submission like “bowed” and “surrendering”, Joyce connotes that Dedalus is too entranced by this woman’s goddess-like sexuality to turn away. When he submits to her, he becomes a creature entirely of sensuality, not beholden to the guilt that will later be his constant companion due to his alleged sins against the Catholic religion. By submitting to his muse of sexuality, he develops a new side of his soul, which is completely in tune with its desire to experience the physical pleasures the world has to offer.

The Virgin Mary represents the muse Polyhymnia, the veiled muse of sacred song, because Joyce depicts her as a figure who is accompanied by the music of Latin prayers. Furthermore, when Dedalus prays, his voice is characterized as “veiled”, which indicates that he is taking on the characteristics of this particular muse as he strengthens his soul’s capacity for religious devotion. During his prayers, he reads a Latin song, which translates into a verses taken from Ecclesiastes 24:13-15, and Song of Songs 4:7-8.

I have grown as a cedar in Lebanon, as a cypress on Mount Zion; I have grown as tall as a cedar in Kadesh, and as the rose bushes of Jericho. As a fair olive in the field and as a plane tree, I have grown tall by the water. In the trees like cinnamon and fragrant balsam I have yielded a perfume. (Joyce 112)

The rest of the song, omitted by Joyce in his book continues as such: “You are all beautiful my love, and there is no flaw in you. O my love, come from Lebanon, come my love, come you shall be crowned” (Guerrerro). References in this Latin song to actions like growing and yielding a product in response to the holiness of the Virgin Mary connote her power to inspire creation as a way of serving her. When Dedalus reads this song, he is moved to “cast sin from him and to repent… to be her knight” (Joyce); this indicates that when he attempts to draw close to Virgin Mary, his Polyhymnia figure, he is moved to devote himself to the woman who is “bright and musical, telling of heaven and infusing peace”. What other women can you think of in the book who serve as muses for Stephen Dedalus? If so, which ones? I found a link on Wikipedia listing all nine of the muses, which is attached. In addition, the link for the Latin song Dedalus reads, composed by Francisco Guerrerro, is included in my blog post. Enjoy!

Modernism's Modernist

Gertrude Stein’s famously difficult poetry fits in quite perfectly with many other aspects of her personality. Stein herself has refuted claims of her poetry being “automatic writing,” saying “there can be automatic movements, but not automatic writing. Writing for the normal person is too complicated an activity to be indulged in automatically.” Much thought and deliberateness was put into each and every word in her maze-like writing. Every punctuation mark, space and indent had a purpose on the complete effect of the work, just as every word was chosen to convey a very specific message, whether or not her readers could pick up on just what that message was. While to me and I’m sure many others Stein’s poetry is more like a puzzle, I can appreciate it for what it is. I piece together my own poem out of hers, and I pick out meaning relevant to my life and me. Not to belittle her writing, but to me, “Tender Buttons” felt almost like a ‘Choose your own adventure.” I took the words that she had given me and I took the structure that she had provided, but I assigned the poem a meaning specific to me.

Similarly, in Modern Art, artists like Henri Matisse and, Stein’s favorite, Pablo Picasso construct strikingly beautiful if somewhat confusing paintings. Each line, circle and color serves a purpose and was chosen deliberately by the artist to contribute to the overall panting. Picasso followed an outline constructed in his mind, one loaded with meaning, but purposely enigmatic. To him, it was loaded with meaning, but for a viewer, that meaning may not be automatically clear.

For me, Modern Art has always spoken to me much more than a simple painting of flowers. While beautiful, a still life is exactly that- a still life. A bowl of fruit or a lake can certainly carry a background story to assign it significance, but no matter what, those things cannot be anything else. However, a painting by Jackson Pollack or Paul Cezanne, splashed with color and sharp lines, can be anything that I can find in it. A circle can be a tear or an insect, a line can be a river or a staff, essentially, I can find anything that I am searching for in a Modern painting. This form of art is far more gratifying in a selfish way than other forms.

Gertrude Stein’s poetry is the Modern painting in the world of words. She allows the reader to have fun with her works and also, to play a part in the adventure of her poetry. She does not designate the feelings that must come with the poems, nor does she decide what the reader is to come away with after reading. Her writing invites the reader in, almost creating a partnership, and she leaves the entire experience open ended.

Stein’s renowned collection of priceless art fits in flawlessly with the art she created. She was consistent with her taste, choosing works that somehow mirrored her own. Mabel Dodge Luhan said about Stein’s writing, “In Gertrude Stein's writing every word lives and, apart from concept, it is so exquisitely rhythmical and cadenced that if we read it aloud and receive it as pure sound, it is like a kind of sensuous music. Just as one may stop, for once, in a way, before a canvas of Picasso, and, letting one's reason sleep for an instant, may exclaim: "It is a fine pattern!" so, listening to Gertrude Steins' words and forgetting to try to understand what they mean, one submits to their gradual charm” (Mellow, 1974, p. 270).

To me, this perfectly sums up what reading a Gertrude Stein poem feels like. Each reading of it is different and exciting, while sometimes confusing, each encounter with her poetry is undeniably pleasing in the simplest aesthetic terms.

Joyce's Missing Partner

Louis and Clark. Orville and Wilbur Wright. Great pioneers, and great partners. James Joyce too was a great pioneer but without a great partner. Joyce pioneered a new writing style called “stream-of-consciousness” which allows readers to experience life – really the novel- with the character.

This style is more than just first person narration. The first person narration allows readers to experience a story or work through the eyes of one character. Stream of consciousness is not only through the eyes of a character but in that characters whole head. Whereas with first person a reader shares experiences alongside the narrator, with stream of consciousness the reader shares experiences as the narrator.

Joyce’s work A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a prime example of stream of consciousness writing. Since the story is told through stream of consciousness writing with the perspective of Stephen Dedalus, the reader connects with Stephen through the different stages of his life, as a school boy, as a religious man, and college student. More personal than a third party omniscient narrator, the stream of consciousness writing lets the reader see Stephen’s frustrations, confusion, hopes, and all other emotions. This writing helped shape the Modernism movement and challenged conventional norms of writing.

A Portrait of the Artist is not the best example of stream of consciousness writing. It is close to the “best” yet still falls short. Despite the fact that the reader is intimately involved with Stephen Dedalus since the story is told through his perspective, Joyce falls short for the narrator still exists in the work. The narrator, though closely involved with Stephen, still remains separate. The prose throughout is not the best example, for there remains distance between the reader and character, excepting one moment at the end of the novel: the journal entries.

The journal entries are Stephen’s thoughts and his narration of his life. For the final few pages, the reader drops into his mind, immersed in Stephen. It is as if the first four parts of the book had two narrators, the character Stephen and the (standard) third party omniscient narrator. Or, perhaps, there was only the one third party omniscient narrator who sometimes dipped into Stephen’s head. Finally in the last pages there is true stream of consciousness, there is only the reader as the character. Whether this conscious decision by Joyce was to ease the reader into this new style or just appropriate for the plot is open to interpretation.

To experience stream of consciousness, to find Joyce’s partner in pioneering, one must read Virginia Woolf. Woolf too was a great pioneer of the stream of consciousness style in an extremely pure way. She writes the way people –her characters- think, flitting between observation and thought which allows for a true connection. Interestingly, she quickly shifts between the minds of characters while still maintaining her intimate stream of consciousness style. It is as if the reader occupies the body and brain of multiple characters, which in turn foster’s the reader’s desire to read the book. As a more invested participant in the story, it is more gripping and compelling.

Woolf makes a great partner to Joyce to understand stream of consciousness style. While Joyce seems to remain hung up on the narrator, Woolf is able to shed the attachment to the narrator. Though a great writer and pioneer of a new style, even Louis and Orville could not pioneer alone.

Stephen, the Satanic Creator

Stephen Dedalus in this work develops independence from his family, friends, and educators, refusing to submit to values that others try to impress upon him. He becomes his own artist who shapes his own destiny, as well as in the more literal sense by involving himself in the creation of works of art. Stephen’s artistic drive could not accord with the Catholic Church, for while the Church encourages the denunciation of emotions and passions, art attempts to appeal to the senses. Stephen, therefore, decides to desert the church and God. By developing himself as an artist, Stephen is replacing the divine in his life. He becomes an independent human creator and chooses not to submit to the divine creator. Only once he feels free from the God above is he able to create himself. He is obsessed with the question of creation and art, for he sees himself as a replacement for God, which he even explicitly states: “The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails” (189).

As Stephen is experiencing his theological dilemma in chapter IV, he begins to doubt his long-held assumption that priesthood is his destiny. He finds meaning in the fact that his name is a reference to Daedalus, the mythological inventor celebrated in ancient times, and realizes that his calling in life is to follow in the footsteps of his namesake. The text states, “Now, at the name of the fabulous artificer, he seemed to hear the noise of dim waves and to see a winged form flying above the waves and slowly climbing the air” (148). While thinking of his name Dedalus, he recalls the mythical Daedalus who liberates himself from prison by building a labyrinth. Stephen becomes inspired by his resolution to leave Christianity, resolving that “He would create proudly out of the freedom and power of his soul, as the great artificer whose name he bore, a living thing, new and soaring and beautiful, impalpable, imperishable” (149). He will no longer passively experience life, but he will fully embrace it and even create more of it through his art, as he makes this mission clear: “…to recreate life out of life!” (150).

If we view this book as autobiographical, not only does Stephen, who is the voice of Joyce, create like a typical artist, but he even creates a new literary technique of stream-of-consciousness. Stephen heartily embraces his namesake as a legendary inventor, which is a way for Joyce to emphasize the novelty of his writing.

Stephen’s decision to opt out of absolute submission to God reminds me of Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost. Milton’s Satan is full of energy, passion, and dynamism—arguably more so than the “positive” characters in this creation narrative, such as God and Jesus. Joyce and Milton both seem to suggest a positive quality to the Satanic, for it ennobles humans to embrace their own senses of creativity. Hence, Stephen’s decision to leave God for the sake of his own creative spirit presents readers with the inherent tension that stands between human and divine desires to create.

Black and White; Extremism in Religion

The novel Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by Joyce James is an autobiography telling the story of the childhood of Stephen Dedalus, a young Catholic boy growing up in Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century. The book takes the reader on a journey through his relationship with religion and God. This journey is similar to the journey of the Biblical character, Jonah.

Jonah the prophet in Israel is approached by God. God tells him to leave Israel and go to the city of Ninveh to announce the destruction of the city because of their wickedness. Unwilling to carry out God's word Jonah sneaks onto a boat in an attempt to flees from God. Forgetting that it is impossible to run away from God, Jonah is thrown overboard by the sailors in order to end a horrific storm and is swallowed by a large fish, an act of God. While Jonah was in the fish for three full days he prays and repents to God to save him. God decides to accept his repentance and causes the fish to spit Jonah out onto dry land. God comes to Jonah another time and tells him to go to Ninveh and declare that the city will be destroys because of the evil-doing. This time Jonah does not run away from God, instead he goes to Ninveh and tells them the word of God.

This journey of Jonah, sinning repenting then finally obeying the commandment of God, is similar to the spiritual journey of the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus. Stephen, feeling alienated from his family because of his different religious views, bumps into an attractive prostitute on the street and sleeps with her. Stephen’s sexual encounter was done knowingly against the will of God. Likewise; Jonah knowingly fled to the ship in order to defy the commandment of God. After Stephen’s first sexual encounter with the prostitutes, he can’t help himself from wanting more. Jonah too, can’t help himself from ignoring God by forgetting that he controls all and that you cannot run away from the Omnipotent.

When Stephen returns to school he is trapped in a sermon given by Father Arnell, forced to listen to him speak in grave depth about the torment of hell. Just as Stephen was trapped in the sermon likewise, Jonah was trapped in the mouth of the large fish. While both characters are trapped they begin to introspect about their lives. Jonah realizes that everything that happened was from God proving that he cannot run away from God. Stephen realizes that his sin has destroyed the innocence of the love of his life. This helped Stephen realize that if he does not confess and repent he is on the path to hell, as described by Father Arnell. Both Stephen and Jonah confess their sins and pray for the forgiveness of God.

After both characters have confessed their sins they are now able to go out into the world and are faced with the same test again but instead of sinning they act appropriately, in the way of God. After his confession Stephen does a quick turn-around and becomes a devout Catholic observer and he attempts to overcome sin by going to an extreme and not making eye contact with women. Although he is tempted he does not act on his temptations no more. Stephen now lives a life devoid of luxuries and devoid of sin. Similarly with Jonah, God speaks to him telling Jonah to go tell Ninveh to repent or else they will be destroyed for their wickedness. Without hesitation, Jonah runs to Ninveh to deliver the word of God, the citizens of Ninveh repented and their lives were spared.

Interestingly, both characters are not satisfied with the results. Jonah is upset that he delivered the message of God and spared the lives of the evil citizens. Jonah fled for a reason and he is upset that he gave in too easily. He is so distraught by this extreme transformation he asks God to kill him, to end his misery. Similarly Stephen is also not happy with his transformation. He realizes that he does not want to live a life completely devoted to the Catholic Church because it hinders the experience of being a cultured human being.

The comparison of the journey of Jonah to the journey of Stephen helps the reader understand the dangers and consequences of religious extremes. Stephen is back and forth between leading a complete devout religious life or a life completely devoid of religion. Ironically, his confusion is as black and white as Father Darnell’s sermon regarding heaven and hell. Religion is not a black and white. Each individual person must bring their life to a balance. Just as Stephen has come to a balance regarding women -where he does not view them as objects nor does he swear them off completely he can approach them and engage in conversation with them- similar balance must be done with religion After much struggle Stephen comes to religious balance where he isolates himself from his family and religion in order to become an artist; however he views his artwork as a service to the community similar to the role of a prophet, who isolates himself in order to serve the community.

Music in the Novel

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is filled with many themes, symbols, and motifs, some of which are obvious from the first glance and some less apparent. One recurring motif within the novel is music. Music, specifically singing, is hinted to numerous times throughout the novel. From the very beginning, music seems to play a vital role in Stephen's life and journey to becoming an artist. Perhaps because music is not Stephen's main artistic endeavor it is often pushed to the side, but nevertheless it manages to make its presence known.

The very first page of the book brings music to the foreground:

He sang that song. That was his song.

O, the geen wothe botheth …

Tralala lala

Tralala tralaladdy

Tralala lala

Tralala lala. (5)

Stephen's love and appreciation for music seems to be a result of his love for the sound of language and words. Whenever we see Stephen singing he seems to be connecting to the sounds of the words and rhymes that he creates; in addition, he is also very receptive of musical cues. At another point in the first chapter, after Stephen is scolded by Dante for liking a protestant girl, he turns the threats into music, "Pull out his eyes,/apologise,/apolgise,/pull out his eyes. (6)" Music seems to be used as a way to comfort himself, by listening to the sounds of the words he can combat the fear of, for example, having his eyes pulled out.

Furthermore, we know that Stephen is a singer, as he is asked to perform several times throughout the novel. But again, this doesn't appear to be an integral part of his identity as it is only touched upon lightly. A more obvious aspect of music in the novel is how Stephen often relates to language in terms of music and rhythm. He uses musical terminology, such as referring to phrases making up "chords" with words.

Another point in the novel where music comes in, is in Chapter four when Stephen is about to leave the director of Belvedere College's office, after he is asked to become a priest. For Stephen the music "passed in an instant . . . over the fantastic fabrics of his mind, dissolving them painlessly and noiselessly as a sudden wave dissolves the sandbuilt turrets of children" (p. 140). The priest, however, exhibits a "mirthless" response to this unexpected burst of music, allowing Stephen to come to the realization that he could never become a priest. In the same chapter, Stephen gets excited about the new adventures to come in attending University College and being able to discover his true identity. He envisions this new endeavor in terms of music: "It seemed to him that he heard notes of fitful music leaping upwards a tone and downwards a diminished fourth, upwards a tone and downwards a major third, like triple-branching flames leaping fitfully, flame after flame, out of a midnight wood. (p. 144)" In these two instances music seems to be a vehicle into the depths of his being, by guiding his decisions and embodying his thoughts.

Overall music seems to play a vital role in the development of the novel, and development of Stephen as an artist. While music is not Stephen's key art form, it certainly helps him discover his writing and poetic side. Poetry is often linked with music and perhaps that is why a novel about a writer/poet is infused with so much music and musical connotations.

Follow these links to actually hear some of the music referenced in the novel! Brigid's Song, Oft in the Stilly Night, Sweet Rosie O' Grady (each one explains where in the novel these songs come up).

Where else do you find music playing a vital role in the novel? Do you think there could have been less of an emphasis on music, more on writing and poetry?

The Distance between Author and Reader

Written in the form of the stream of consciousness, the text’s design lacks the conventional organization of ideas found in other literary works. In doing so, Joyce captures the cacophonic, non-structure of the human mind. Stephen is playing a game of football at one moment, and then his thoughts suddenly dive into a cascade of old childhood memories.

But is Stephen really James Joyce? A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is Joyce’s acclaimed autobiography, yet it is not written in the first person. The author creates a pseudonym, Stephen, to act as himself. This, by default, establishes a distance between the author and his persona. Difficult enough as it is for Joyce to retrieve his past memories, he now has an additional challenge of recording those memories through the voice of a fictitious character.

The stream of consciousness prose is meant to engage readers so that they enter the minds of characters. The author wants to bridge any gaps between reader and character, and in the case of Joyce, that character is the author, as this is an autobiography. But how successful was Joyce in engaging his readers? Think about how many layers of distance there are between reader and author in this work: Joyce attempts to retrieve a memory, but disguises his voice through a representational character named Stephen. By recording his memory through this factitious character, his memory somehow loses its accuracy, and becomes something totally new and separate on its own. This factitious character’s newly formed memory is not told completely through his stream of consciousness; instead, an unidentified omniscient narrator interjects every once in a while and takes on the role of storyteller. Now the reader picks up this book and is reading the new memories of a character named Stephen, often told by a narrator. How very distant he is from the author!

A Puritanical Take on Stephen

John Winthrop first coined the term “as a city upon a hill” in 1630 when speaking to his fellow Puritans. What he meant was to tell the people that they had an obligation to be upstanding citizens. Every move they made would be watched and scrutinized as if they were living on top of a hill. They were to be the leaders and set the precedent for the others who wondered what America could offer. I think this quote is relevant to the life of Stephen, in the way he analyzes every move each person in his life makes. In addition to evaluating each important person in his life, Stephen carefully examines himself and often judges himself and others.

The first time Stephen shows this “as a city upon a hill” mentality is in chapter one when he places so much detail on what others perceive of him. Stephen as young boy is very concerned with how the other boys treat him and if they consider him a member of the group. He carefully processes each incident multiple times in order to determine their response. Two of the most poignant times this mentality arises are when Wells pushes Stephen into the “square ditch” and when Stephen decides to go see the rector and take a stance. In the first instance Stephen continuously repeats the story of what happened slightly varying the details of smell, touch, and sound. He expresses that a wrongdoing has occurred and that he was treated badly. The second time he mentions the incident he adds how others also felt that Wells' actions were wrong and a terrible thing to do to another person. However, he also alludes to the fact that while others in the group may have felt the action was wrong; they never explicitly stated that they felt this way. Stephen was disappointed in himself as well that he could not find the courage to say that he felt mistreated. With regards to the second instance, Stephen was able to express himself and find his voice; however, he still cared about how the other boys would receive him. He was able to clearly state why Father Dolan had misused his authority and completely subdue his emotions throughout the conversation with the rector. Yet, Stephen in debating whether to approach the rector or not, still accounted for how the others would be affected by his actions. While these two narratives show how Stephen evolved, by the end of chapter one he still needs some improvement from his childhood self.

In chapter two Stephen also encounters this “as a city upon a hill” mentality. Stephen reaches a conclusion that being a milkman is not the worst thing that could happen to him. He ponders what his life would be like if he were to accept this prospect. Stephen is not bothered by this concept in the least yet, when he begins to think of his family and their expectations he cringes. He is also concerned about what others would think of him doing such a job. He feels as though his education would be wasted and the job would only please him for so long until he got bored. Therefore, despite his own opinions on the matter Stephen again caves to whatever pleases the masses. While Stephen may not have been considering this prospect too seriously, he was still intrigued by its allure. Stephen cannot seem to understand that it is his life and his decisions to make not everyone else's.

Stephen finally has an epiphany in chapter four when he watches his old classmates going skinny dipping in the ocean. He sees them from atop a hill and begins to introspect about his own life. When his supposed “friends” start mocking his name and adding Greek references to his name, the epiphany is sparked. Suddenly, Stephen realizes that in order to achieve freedom he must create his own self. No one else can interpret or help him in discovering himself. Stephen would have never realized this goal of his had his friends not joked about his name. Their jokes caused Stephen to think about the mythical connection to his name and finally come to the conclusion that it was solely up to him to invent himself. This epiphany occurs literally and metaphorically on the hill. Firstly, Stephen is sitting on an actual hill watching his friends when he realizes the truth. Secondly, in order for Stephen to grow, he has to experience and not just have the mentality of “as a city upon a hill”. He introspects and learns that in order to be free he no longer cares what others think of him. Stephen still thinks of himself as an exemplary model but in terms of his characteristics. He no longer makes decisions based on other people, rather he realizes he needs to do things for himself and because he wants to do so.

To summarize, Stephen begins as a novice in terms of “as a city upon a hill”. He is controlled by what others think and feel about him. As he experiences life he continues to let others determine his decisions. However, in chapter four Stephen finally realizes that he must be the ruler of his life and no one else. Stephen takes the control back into his own hands and shows how much he has grown from the young schoolboy in chapter one. He finally understands that his opinion is the only one that matters. The “as a city upon a hill” mentality only applies to himself now and he no longer feels as though he must reflect on how others perceive his actions.

Ladies Man

Throughout the novel we encounter an account of the influential years of Stephen Dedalus. Stephen’s experiences with religion and school contribute to his growth as an artist, beginning with his struggles as a young child and on to his adolescence in university. Crucial to those experiences is his interaction with women. The women, as the story progresses, prove to be a driving force behind Stephen’s art. Stephen is conflicted about his own views of women and suffers great guilt. Throughout his life, the types of women who influence him change. Each woman represents a new stage of Stephens’s life and a step forward in his journey to finding himself.

Stephen's early years revolve around his crush on Emma. Although Stephen does not know her very well, he believes she is the girl of his dreams and thinks of her as a goddess. He compares Emma to the fictional character in Count of Monte Cristo, Mercedes. In Stephens’s eyes Mercedes is the ideal woman. He has created a whole persona of a real-life Mercedes and dreams of finding her. As a child, Emma is his Mercedes, keeping her mysterious, writing her love letters and fantasizing about her constantly. This infatuation with a fictional character marks the beginning for his search of the woman who will transform him into an artist.

The figure of the prostitute begins with Stephen's first sexual encounter. From childhood he has heard of women like that, but never actually encountered one. Stephen is unable to grasp the concept of the prostitute until he himself reaches the age where he meets one and subsequently loses his virginity to her. His longing to find this ideal woman is confused with his sexual desires, leading him to the whores. The prostitute is a symbol for the stage in his life that “His childhood was dead”. It was at the point when he lost his virginity that his innocence went with it. It is after this loss that Stephen begins his moral decline and dalliance in a life of sin.

Once the guilt is too much to bear Stephen finds himself in church and is awed by a portrait of the Virgin Mary. His sinful past has not brought out his transformation into an artist nor has he found the woman who he believes is meant to bring about this transformation in him. Therefore, he looks to the Virgin Mary as a key to his redemption. She becomes the next woman Stephen romanticizes as he veers his life into a more religious direction in hopes of finding clarity.

Stephen’s extreme regard toward women is direct result of his Catholic upbringing. The idealization of women to extremes, - Virgin Mary- or the complete denigration of women- prostitutes. He struggles with religion throughout his life trying to find the right balance. It is not until he has experiences both spectrums that he is able to clearly see what he’s been looking for all along. When his peers mock his name in Greek, Stephen begins to think about the meaning behind the Greek name and wonders about his true purpose. This brings about his epiphany; it is in this moment that he is truly able to see clearly. He envisions a beautiful girl wading in the water and reacts in a completely different manner. This insight is the accomplishment of his balanced view. He no longer sees the idealized and romanticized version of women but is able to picture himself with an ordinary woman; Emma.

The Effect of Hypersensitivity on Stephen Dedalus

We discussed many aspects of Stephen Dedalus’character- his obsession with language, his religious growth, his relationship with his father- but another aspect of his personality that struck me as I read the first 3 chapters is his acute sensory awareness. Through Stephen’s stream of consciousness, it becomes obvious that he has heightened responses to visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory stimuli in his environment. His hypervigilance of sensory input, which others would not even register or respond to, fills his everyday experiences with agitation and creates negative feelings and thoughts. His extreme sensitivity to sights, sounds, touch, and smells affects his personality and day to day functioning. At times he merely comments on them, but in other instances they cause an avoidance of activities or significant distress. This may account for his desire to isolate himself from others in an attempt to protect himself from his senses’ overwhelming impact on his body and mind.

As a young boy Stephen speaks of what is immediate and important in his life. However, these descriptions are odd, for he is not describing the objects themselves or sharing his feelings or thoughts about the people or their personalities as one might expect. Rather he tells us how his bed feels- wet, warm, and then cold- and that his mom had a nicer smell than his father. My initial reaction was that perhaps the author wanted us to experience the thoughts of a young child, at an age in which so much of the world is experienced through the senses. However, as the story unfolds, we are inundated with more images and descriptions from Stephen’s mind.

When Stephen describes the playground at Clongowes, he comments on how it is swarming with boys who are shouting and prefects making strong cries. This scene overwhelms him, and he withdraws to protect himself, keeping on the fringe of his line, out of reach of the rude feet because his body feels small and weak among the throng of players and he is fearful. At his relatives’ home, he is uncomfortable at the party when the children dance and romp noisily; he withdraws into a snug corner of the room to taste the joy of his loneliness and the sensory comfort it affords him. The psychosomatic reaction to these overpowering stimuli reaches a climax in the incident with the square ditch. It is a traumatic sensory experience in the cold and slimy water which was next to his skin and from which he becomes physically ill.

Stephen reacts to his mother’s slippers, strangely through his sense of smell, noting that they have a lovely warm smell as they reach near the fire. The memory of his communion is contaminated by the smell of the wine on the priest’s breath. We discussed in class how Stephen is so attuned to language and music, however, his hypersensitivity to sounds that typical people would be able to filter out or not focus on at all appear and disturb him repeatedly. He calls the sound of the word suck ugly, and the simple memory of dirty water going down a lavatory drain is enough to make him flush cold and then hot. In the refectory, Stephen shut and opened the flaps of his ears, hearing the noise of the room roar like a train at night. On the train going home for Christmas he hears the click click of the guards keys; in the cricket game he hears the pick, pack, pock, puck of the balls.

Stephen’s visual sense is also distorted by his hypersensitivity. While someone describing autumn might speak of cool crisp air or colored leaves, he focuses on the filthy cowyard with foul green puddles and clots of liquid dung and steaming brantroughs. This image sickens his heart and revolts him so that he couldn’t even look at the milk the cows yielded. The word dark and variations in mud, black, and dim, repeat innumerable times as reference to every imaginable thing- streets, air, corridors, rooms, eyes, faces, even sin. When he surrenders to his lust with the prostitute, he feels the pressure of her lips as a complete sensory experience, darker than the swoon of sin, softer than sound or odour.

Stephen’s senses invade even his dreams as we read in the climactic scene at the end of chapter three. The senses of his soul would not be bound though he desired it with all his will, resulting in his vomiting profusely in agony. After this catharsis and his confession, he still has intense reaction to his environment, but the nature of it changes from dark to shimmering lights and from reeking odor to quiet fragrances. He now “senses” how beautiful and peaceful life could be, focusing on white pudding and eggs and the fragrant masses of white flowers and pale flames of candles at the altar.

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know

I found Stephen’s admiration for Lord Byron quite intriguing. I wanted to know more about this important British character, and to better understand Joyce’s use of Byron to indicate certain facets of Stephen’s personality. Joyce’s choice of role model for Stephen was certainly not coincidental, but without knowing about Lord Byron, it would be impossible to understand his influence on the young Stephen.

George Gordon Byron, born on the 22^nd of January, 1788, was a hugely important British poet, and a leading figure in Romanticism. He was somewhat wild, and a large contrast to the common conception of the shy and sensitive artist. He fought in the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman empire, making him a lasting hero among the Greeks. Finally, he died from a fever contracted while in Greece. He was famously described as being “Mad, Bad and Dangerous to know,” by Lady Carloline Lamb. This description is enlightening as to why exactly a young boy might choose a poet as a role model. Lord Byron was much more than a quiet thinker, and this wild artist would serve to be the perfect hero to Stephen, specifically because of his badness.

This alone would allow Lord Byron to be a perfect candidate to serve as Stephen Dedalus’s personal hero. Early on in Chapter two, Stephen discussed his love of the book The Count of Monte Cristo. He spent many long hours acting out the story with his friend Aubrey, and truly incorporated the story into his own life. The adventure and passion of the tale appealed to the young Stephen, and he once again found this sense of adventure in the life of Lord Byron. Byron was a rogue, a renegade and yet he managed to bridge a deep love of words, which Stephen shared, into his exciting life. He managed to be both sensitively brooding, without sacrificing a strikingly masculine personality. This was greatly admirable in the eyes of the budding artist Stephen, as he began to discover his own sensitive side, and still wished to nurture an adventurous excitement.

Additionally however, Lord Byron is famous for his love life. His mother is famous for remarking, “He has no indisposition that I know of but love, desperate love, the worst of all maladies in my opinion.” He pursued many different women during many different periods, but he attempted to woo each individual with a passionate fervor, again something quite inspirational for the young Stephen. Again, this aligns with his hero Edmond Dantes and his passion for his fiancé Mercedes. Stephen reenacted the fervent declarations of love found in The Count of Monte Cristo, and even went so far as to search for his very own Mercedes. Each girl he came into contact with he viewed as a potential Mercedes, and was then disappointed when his real-life romance fell short of his romantic expectations. Still, Stephen did not abandon his hopes of a ‘desperate’ love like Lord Byron’s, and this is confirmed when Stephen composes his poem “E_C_”.

Although it was apparent from the very opening of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man that Stephen identified with literature form his identification with baby tuckoo, Joyce takes this further by incorporating both The Count of Monte Cristo and Lord Byron into Stephen’s development. Lord Byron represents a hero to the growing Stephen, and through imitating him, Stephen was able to find an outlet for his budding sexuality and search for love. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, he received validation for the deep sensitivity he had always been aware of, without succumbing to a weakness that sensitivity usually implies. He was able to, instead, feel mature and enlightened, and through the pursuit of this line of thought, we see the beginning reconciliation between the “artist,” and “the young man.”

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: Chapter One

In many ways, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a typical coming of age novel—or Bildungsroman, to use the formal German word for such books (Bildungsroman translates as “formation novel”). Stephen deals with family strife, with bullying, with the social challenges of public education, with the mysteries of his religious upbringing, with a mean-spirited teacher, and a loving if rather rough family. At the same time, this is a special kind of coming of age novel about the artistic maturation of a budding creative talent (the formal word for such novels is Künstlerroman or “artist’s novel”). By the end of the book, Stephen has committed himself to the path of a writer, dedicating himself to the larger purpose of creating important, lasting works of art.

A young James Joyce

Toward the beginning, Stephen’s story could be almost any young person’s story. True, he is born to an Irish Catholic family living through a tumultuous and impoverished period of his nation’s history, but most of his concerns as a boy—while filtered through the prism of Irish culture in the late nineteenth century—are the typical concerns of any youngster. In the first chapter, really only one quality sets him off as different from a typical kid: his obsession with language. From the beginning, words are nourishment for Stephen in a way that they typically are not for a boy. The pleasure he receives from the mere sound of them is striking, and his attention to the surfaces of words seems unusual for a kid his age. 

At the end of the chapter, when Stephen stands up for himself and his class mates (thus passing his first trial as a human being--the trial of moral decency and personal courage), he does so, importantly, by way of words. It is no dramatic physical fight with one of his classmates, no bold refusal of punishment. Rather, it is an almost lawyer-like assertion of innocence against false accusations (of him being a scurrilous slacker and trickster). A less verbally confident kid would have backed down from the rector’s questions, would have simply acquiesced with the notion that Stephen’s punishment earlier that day had simply been due to an error. But Stephen pursues his case, states his innocence, provides reasons for his grievance, and thus triumphs over adversity—in this case the adversity of the routine injustice of corporal punishment of Irish schoolchildren.

He is rewarded by becoming, briefly, Stephen the boy-hero. His schoolmates, some of whom had previously worked against him, become his comrades. He becomes their champion, and they lift him into the air and celebrate his courage. Stephen conquers injustice with words and proves that words, used truthfully and courageously, can enact a concrete difference in his own life and even in that of those in his immediate community. Thus his future vocation as a writer is anticipated and validated. By conquering his boyish fears and using words to triumph over personal and (admittedly minor) social injustice, Stephen Daedalus begins to define for himself a path forward that will both distinguish himself from the crowd and allow him to quietly become their little champion.

That’s what stood out for me as I reread this first chapter. What about all of you? What did you notice about Stephen in the first chapter? Do my remarks above fit with your reaction, or was your reaction different? Did you find the Irish slang and historical references confusing? Are you looking up words that you don’t understand? Use the thread below to post your thoughts about the first chapter of Joyce’s classic novel.