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.