1.1.

Existentialism in literature

More than any other recent philosophical movement, the existentialists communicated their ideas
through plays, novels and short stories. Peter Rickman asks: why did existentialism resort to
literary expression?
Jean-Paul Sartre was a professional philosopher who taught the subject and wrote substantial
works on it. However he also wrote, and is widely known for, novels, short stories and plays. It is
no accidental link, as a man might be both a doctor and a golfer. Sartres literary work embodied,
and thereby made widely known and even fashionable, his philosophical ideas. In this he
instensified a tendency of the movement known as existentialism. Sren Kierkegaard, usually
considered the father of this movement, made wide use of fictional devices. For example his first
major philosophically significant work Either Or presents the very different views of three
characters of his own creation; one an aesthete, the second a moralist and the third a sensualist.
Their views are expressed respectively in the form of essays, aphorisms, letters and a diary.
Friedrich Nietzsche, if not an ancestor an avuncular godfather of existentialism, produced Thus
Spoke Zarathustra in which he wove a poetic fiction around the figure of that Persian sage.
Martin Heidegger believed in the philosophic significance of poetry and attempted, though not
very successfully, some of his own.
Of course, presenting philosophy in literary form was not new. Platos dialogues were literary
masterpieces. Diderot and Voltaire provided just two examples of thinkers expressing themselves
in fiction. However, the majority of philosophical texts have, through the ages, taken the form of
essays, treatises and transcribed lectures. So what was the impulse behind this fresh turn towards
literary expression and what is its importance?
The answer, I want to argue, is closely linked to two significant contributions existentialism has
made to philosophical debate. The high tide of existentialisms popularity is over. In the fifties
and sixties there were seminars on Heidegger in most German universities and even in some
Anglo-Saxon institutions. In Paris existentialism became fashionable. That flood has receded and
other philosophical movements such as Deconstruction have come to the fore. Also the grimness
of the existentialist vision has come to be criticised. Heidegger, writing after the German defeat

and Sartre, after seeing Frances defeat, both saw life as a struggle against adversity. Sartres
Nausea may after all just have been due to a bad trip and life may contain joy as well as care
and dread. There remain, however, two lasting philosophic achievements.
The first is the reminder, vividly dramatised in fictional accounts, that philosophy is about
human life and its problems and not just academic nitpicking about abstract and abstruse matters.
I say reminder because this has always been philosophys true concern; Marx was obviously
wrong, probably not through ignorance but through the desire for a rhetorical flourish, when he
claimed that philosophy had hitherto been more concerned with understanding the world than
changing it. One has only to read Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Spinoza or Kant to observe efforts to
understand linked to the desire to change things for the better. There have been, it is true,
philosophers and whole philosophic movements, not least in our time, that protest that they are
harmless specialists clarifying terms and disentangling grammatical mistakes, so that they could
be left in peace in their academic ivory towers. Against these the existentialists have provided a
timely reminder that philosophy is about human life and its distinctive features.
Secondly, existentialism insists on the uniqueness of individuals. I am not just an example of a
human being. It is not enough to identify myself as a Jew or a Londoner. As Heidegger insisted,
the realisation that I must die and not just that one must die brings home to me my irreplaceable
identity. From this results the one formal principle shared by all existentialists: the call to
authenticity.
Here then was a powerful reason to move from philosophical generalisation to literary
instantiation. In fiction and drama we are introduced to individual figures that illustrate in
concrete detail what it is like to be human. A Greek tragedy such as the Antigone, just like
Sartres plays, does not only illustrate a theme, the conflict between conscience and obedience to
the law, for example, but presents us with fictional characters who show how particular persons
in specific situations respond.
Once you emphasise the relevance of philosophy to human life, questions of moral choice
become of central importance. This focus provides a further reason for existentialisms
predilection for literary expression. As existentialism precludes itself from having a clear-cut

common moral philosophy it is driven from theorising towards the analysis of individual
personal choices. This provides an interesting challenge to traditional moral philosophy, most
effectively expressed in literary form.
The reason why existentialism debars itself from having a coherent moral and political
philosophy is its emphasis on personal, authentic choice. This is why individual existentialists
differ widely from each other in their religious, political and moral convictions. Kierkegaard was
a dedicated Christian, Sartre an atheist, Heidegger supported the Nazis and remained half-hearted
about even condemning the Holocaust, while Sartre supported communism. They were all at one
on the formal virtue of authenticity, i.e. the genuineness of personal choice. We are always
presented with alternatives between which we can and must choose. We are, in Sartres telling
phrase condemned to be free but anguish arises because there are no objective guidelines.
I leave aside, as too vast a subject for an article, the question whether existentialism is justified in
discarding objective moral standards as are provided by philosophies such as those of Aristotle,
Kant or Mill. We must concede, however, that all moral philosophies are limited in at least two
ways. One is that the basis of any moral philosophy itself rests on assumptions that are open to
critical scrutiny.
Aristotles moral philosophy is about achieving the good life, eudaimonia, inadequately
translated as happiness because it involves flourishing or self-fulfilment. We are all familiar,
even in trivial matters, with the uplift we get from functioning well, of successfully exercising
our talents. However, to deduce any moral guidance from this we have to decide what matters for
the human being, what that self is that needs fulfilling, or else why should it be more important
to develop my talent for philosophising than for waggling my ears? Aristotle responded to this
question by defining man as the rational animal whose fulfilment consists of exercising that
reason and of controlling and balancing rationally his varied cravings, (i.e. finding the proper
mean between opposing excesses). But can we take for granted mans rationality as his crucial
characteristic?
It is also highly plausible to stress, as do the utilitarians, the importance of maximising pleasure
and minimising pain. But this is obviously a half-truth, for boxers and mountaineers just as much

as dedicated scientists do expose themselves, voluntarily, to pain. There is also the problem of
measuring my pleasure against your pain, or short-term pleasure against long-term pain.
Could we alternatively rely on such feelings as sympathy or compassion? Here the trouble is that
they are not stable. Today I may love humanity; tomorrow, with the flu or a hangover, I may
detest the human race.
Another approach is taken by thinkers like Hegel or Marx who believe that we can discover the
movement of history as the unfolding of reason, the advance of freedom or the movement
towards a classless, just society. We could then act in harmony with such a trend. The trouble is
that we have come to doubt if there are such predetermined and discernible goals in history. Last
but not least in this list one needs to mention Kants moral philosophy, according to which
practical reason gives rise to duty as it speaks to us as the innate voice of conscience. The moral
law, articulated in the different formulations of the Categorical Imperative, is, however, strictly
formal, commanding consistency, impartiality and respect for the goals of others. Rather than
giving rise to principles they act as criteria for them. They are much like the rules of logic, which
do not tell us what to write but only how to avoid writing nonsense. Obviously these brief
references cannot do justice to these different approaches to moral philosophy. They only serve
as a reminder that such philosophies cannot give us direct guidance because they already rest on
presuppositions and are too formal.
A further reason why such general moral theories cannot directly guide us is the prevalence of
tragic conflicts. Different theories may agree that lying is wrong or that cruelty is morally
objectionable. But what if being truthful is also unkind? We may agree that both justice and
peace are valuable, but may find that we have to fight to preserve justice.
It is to the existentialists credit to have focused on the implications of the limits of moral
theories by emphasising the inevitability of personal choice. Even if we set aside any doubts
about the possibility of objective moral laws derived from God, nature or reason, they do not
take us all the way to a decision. You may, for example, be a devout Christian accepting every
injunction of the Bible and yet choose pacifism or believe in just wars according to your own
interpretation. You cannot, in other words, programme a computer with your moral principles,

feed in the details of a specific case, press a button and receive a decision as to what you should
do. It lies in the very nature of moral choice that it is irreducibly personal. Nothing can lift this
burden from your shoulders.
The reminder that we cannot shift our responsibility, cannot shelter behind general theories, is
important enough but essentially negative. Can the existentialist offer any positive guidance,
which we look for from philosophy? We can readily agree with existentialisms call for
authenticity and selfrealisation but is this any more helpful than calls to consistency? Here we
have reached another reason for existentialisms resort to literary expression. Some may object to
my argument so far that philosophers of the past did hold specific moral views that they offered
as guidelines. Aristotle extolled what we call gentlemanly virtues, Kant believed strongly in the
death penalty, Mill fervently espoused freedom. However, in my view such conclusions did not
follow strictly from their philosophies but were coloured by their cultural background and
personality. The philosophers job is not moral guidance and we would not accept it from him
qua philosopher, though we may respect his moral views as we respect the person holding them.
What philosophy can do is provide frameworks for thinking about the issues on which we have
to decide. This is the value of such theories as that of the mean, the categorical imperative or
the felicity calculus.
A way to provide further help has been mapped out by Kierkegaard and has remained
paradigmatic for the existentialist approach. Over and above offering formal criteria and
frameworks for reflection we can conjure up individualised models, or types of life, and the
imaginative exploration of their implications. The individual is thus helped concretely to decide,
with more insight, on the kind of person he wants to be. Great literature has always done that. In
existentialism it became a consciously chosen instrument of philosophic endeavour.
Existentialism stands on the outside of philsophy departments, cool and hip, listening to an
eclectic mix of music while secretly wanting to be respected by the academic elites. It is
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, rebels looking to the past. It is Sartre and de Beauvoir, political
activists with academic credentials. Existentialism is the outsider, Camus, rejecting the label
existentialist and traveling uneasily between and within journalistic, literary, theatrical,
political, and philosophical cliqus.

Was, or is, existentialism an influential movement within philosophy? I could argue that
existentialism had minimal influence within the academic discipline of philosophy, and at least in
the Anglo-American traditions scholars appear to concur. The textbooks commonly assigned for
introductory philosophy courses barely mention existentialism, including the texts I have
assigned. But do we limit influence to a scholastic metric? That runs counter the very ideals
embraced by the existentialists.
If we reconsider influence in terms of popular culture and awareness beyond the ivory towers,
then existentialism occupies a rather unique position. Although existentialism doesnt match the
influence of other, better defined philosophical movements in academic circles, it exceeds others
in the most basic way: the general public is curious about it. My students know, vaguely and
sometimes incorrectly, what existentialism might mean. High school World literature courses
include Kafka, Camus, and Sartre, at a minimum. There is something appealing about
existentialism to the contemplative teen mind.
Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger are more influential than the existentialists within philosophy, but
many (most) of my undergraduate students know nothing of these thinkers. Then again, beyond
the ancient Greeks, few philosophers are well-known. What people do remember are people with
interesting lives.
The thinkers most commonly labelled existential, correctly or not, had interesting lives.
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche embraced their roles as outcasts, offering prophet-like aphorisms
embraced by other outcasts. Sartre was complex, especially his personal life. And Kafka? His life
defines tragedy in the twentieth century, his literary alienation expressed just before the
Holocaust. A boring existential thinker surely exists unread by most students and scholars.
Existentialism. A difficult term to define and an odd movement. Odd because most thinkers
whom the intellectual world categorizes as existentialists are people who deny they are that. And,
two of the people whom nearly everyone points to as important to the movement, Soren
Kierkegaard and Fredrich Nietzsche, are both too early in time to be in the group, thus are
usually called "precursorers," but studied and treated as members of the group.

Major figures like Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger and Albert Camus all flatly deny they are
in the movement (at least at times they did), yet everyone says they are central.
Secondly, the term is very difficult, if not totally impossible to define. What is existentialism?
I've been asked that a thousand times, have read most intro type books on the field, have spent
much of my teaching life "doing" Existentialism, yet cannot give a coherent and relatively short
definition. It's sort of a spirit or aura of how one responds to human existence, much easier to
characterize (rather than define) in negative terms -- what Existentialism is NOT that philosophy
generally is -- than in positive terms of a definition.
However, I can define certain characterists that most Existentialists (and precursors to
Existentialism) seem to share:

they are obsessed with how to live one's life and believe that philosophical and
psychological inquiry can help.

they believe there are certain questions that everyone must deal with (if they are to take
human life seriously), and that these are special -- existential -- questions. Questions such
as death, the meaning of human existence, the place of God in human existence, the
meaning of value, interpersonal relationship, the place of self-reflective conscious
knowledge of one's self in existing.
Note that the existentialists on this characterization don't pay much attention to "social"
questions such as the politics of life and what "social" responsibility the society or state
has. They focus almost exclusively on the individual.

By and large Existentialists believe that life is very difficult and that it doesn't have an
"objective" or universally known value, but that the individual must create value by
affiriming it and living it, not by talking about it.

Existential choices and values are primarily demonstrated in ACT not in words.

Given that one is focusing on individual existence and the "existential" struggles (that is,
in making decisions that are meaningful in everyday life), they often find that literary

characterizations rather than more abstract philosophical thinking, are the best ways to
elucidate existential struggles.

They tend to take freedom of the will, the human power to do or not do, as absolutely
obvious. Now and again there are arguments for free will in Existentialist literature, but
even in these arguments, one gets the distinct sense that the arguments are not for
themselves, but for "outsiders." Inside the movement, free will is axiomatic, it is
intuitively obvious, it is the backdrop of all else that goes on.
There are certainly exceptions to each of these things, but this is sort of a placing of the
existentialist-like positions.

======================================
Another way of doing it is much simpler. There are about a dozen major thinkers who are
characterized as "Existentilist" whom most scholars agree are existentialist. Thus, Existentialism
is what these thinkers hold and write. I think that in the end, this is probably the best way to
understand it.
In response to a question about the above:
I want to address, at least for a first round, the question of decision making for the Existentialists.
First of all there is a split among them on their concern for decisions and actions.
One of the most important thinkers in this movement, Martin Heidegger, is very little concerned
with deciding and acting, but is concerned with knowing. It not what you DO that matters to
Heidegger, but how you KNOW it and that you KNOW it. Jean-Paul Sartre on the other hand is
profoundly concerned with acting.
However, in general the Existentialists recognize that human knowledge is limited and fallible.
One can be deeply committed to truth and investigation and simply fail to find adequate truth, or
get it wrong. Further, unlike science, which can keep searching for generations for an answer and
afford to just say: We don't know yet, in the everyday world, we often simply must do or not do.
The moment of decision comes. For the Existentialist one faces these moments of decision with a

sense of fallibility and seriousness of purpose, and then RISKS. Sartre is extremely harsh on this
point. At one place he says: When I choose I choose for the whole world. Now what can this
mean. I think what Sartre is getting at is that first of all when I choose and act, I change the
world in some iota. This note gets written or it doesn't. That has ramifications. It commits me to
say what I'm saying. It may change someone who may be affected by my remarks. Others can be
too if they hear or read them. And so on. The ripples of actions are like ripples on the sea, they
go on and on and on.
By my acts I also begin to define and create the self I am, which is, to some extent a public self.
Thus an act is like opening Pandora's box, it lets out what's inside the act and there is no getting
it back.
That's not a MORAL point to Sartre, it is an ontological fact, that is, a fact about the world. Not a
should or an ought, but a description of a reality about the world and human choice.
If:
1. I am a person serious about my acts.
2. If they are as uncertain as Sartre describes
3. They are as potentially momentuous as he describes
Then:
It's not surprising that acting, for the Existentialist, is a terrifying responsibility and living and
acting is a burden that causes great anxiety for the Existentialists. There is not absolute certainty
(for some of the reasons given above and for yet more we can talk about later), thus human acts
are the full responsibility of the individual.
Further, in another place in Sartre's major work, BEING AND NOTHINGNESS, he talks about
creating oneself in action. What he means by this is that I, the human, am free. I can make up my
own mind about my acts. What I will BE in some final sense is what I make of myself. Thus my
acts are not trivial, but definitive of my very self-hood. Again, acting in such a world of freedom,

uncertainty and ontological responsibility (as opposed to moral responsibility), is so weighty that
the Existentialists nearly recoil from living and acting under the terror of the weight of it all.
Put in the shortest form: Living without certainty and with personal responsibility is a nearly
unbearable burden.

1.2.

Existential Elements in Joyces A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man

The philosophy of existentialism emphasizes the subjectivity and individuality of man. Jean-Paul
Sartre, the prominent twentieth century philosopher, says that man is free to make his choices in
life with no obligations from any outside value except what man chooses to believe in. The
philosophy, as introduced by Albert Camus, another twentieth century existentialist, also deals
with the absurdity of life and its meaningless. James Joyce was once quoted saying to his brother
Stanislaus What can a man know but what passes inside his head? which suggested that a
man can depend only on his own judgment to figure out what to do in his life. Joyces A Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Man deals with the protagonist Stephen Dedalus, and his coming of age
in Ireland. As the protagonist grows up, he begins to develop a love for art and this passion
makes him loose interest in his friends daily concerns. Stephen also begins to realize the heavy
influence of religion and politics on him and the people of Ireland in general. Nevertheless, as a
true existentialist, Stephen begins to make his own decisions on how to run his life. This paper
intends to highlight the existential elements in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

1.3.

Time and Space in the novel

1.4.

Reality and fiction in the novel

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Silence, exile, and cunning."- these are weapons Stephen Dedalus chooses in A

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. And these, too, were weapons that its author,
James Joyce, used against a hostile world.
Like his fictional hero, Stephen, the young Joyce felt stifled by the narrow interests,
religious pressures, and political squabbles of turn-of-the-century Ireland. In 1904,
when he was twenty-two, he left his family, the Roman Catholic Church, and the
"dull torpor" of Dublin for the European continent to become a writer. With brief
exceptions, he was to remain away from Ireland for the rest of his life.
It was a bold move for several reasons. In spite of his need to break away from
constrictions on his development as a writer, Joyce had always been close to his
family. He still admired the intellectual and artistic aspects of the Roman Catholic
tradition that had nurtured him. And the city of Dublin was in his soul.
(Asked later how long he had been away from Dublin, he answered: "Have I ever left
it?") But Joyce did achieve his literary goal in exile. The artistic climate of
continental Europe encouraged experiment. With cunning (skillfulness) and hard
work, Joyce developed his own literary voice. He labored for ten years on Portrait of
the Artist, the fictionalized account of his youth. When it appeared in book form in
1916, twelve years after Joyce's flight from Ireland, it created a sensation.
Joyce was hailed as an important new force in literature.
Portrait of the Artist is usually read as an autobiography, and many of the incidents
in it come from Joyce's youth. But don't assume that he was exactly like his sober
hero, Stephen Dedalus. Joyce's younger brother Stanislaus, with whom he was very
close, called Portrait of the Artist "a lying autobiography and a raking satire." The
book should be read as a work of art, not a documentary record. Joyce transformed
autobiography into fiction by selecting, sifting, and reconstructing scenes from his
own life to create a portrait of Stephen Dedalus, a sensitive and serious young boy
who gradually defines himself as an artist.
Still, Joyce and Stephen have much in common. Both were indelibly marked by their
upbringing in drab, proud, Catholic Dublin, a city that harbored dreams of being the
capital of an independent nation but which in reality was a backwater ruled by
England. Like Stephen, Joyce was the eldest son of a family that slid rapidly down
the social and economic ladder. When Joyce was born in 1882, the family was still
comfortably off. But its income dwindled fast after Joyce's sociable, witty, harddrinking father, John Stanislaus, lost his political job- as Stephen's father Simon
loses his- after the fall of the Irish leader and promoter of independence Charles
Stewart Parnell. Although the loss of the post was not directly related to Parnell's
fall, Joyce's father worshipped "the uncrowned king of Ireland" and blamed his loss
on anti-Parnell forces like the Roman Catholic Church. (Joyce portrays the kind of
strong emotions Parnell stirred up in the

Christmas dinner scene in Chapter One of Portrait of the Artist.) Like Simon Dedalus,
the jobless John Stanislaus Joyce was forced to move his family frequently, often
leaving rent bills unpaid.
Joyce, though, seems to have taken a more cheerful view of his family problems,
and to have shown more patience with his irresponsible father, than did his fictional
hero. He seems to have inherited some of his father's temperament; he could clown
at times, and he laughed so readily he was called "Sunny Jim." He also inherited a
tenor voice good enough to make him consider a concert career. Many believe that
musical talent is responsible for Joyce's gift for language.
Joyce's father was determined that his son have the finest possible education, and
though precarious family finances forced the boy to move from school to school, he
received a rigorous Jesuit education. In Portrait of the Artist Joyce relives through
Stephen the intellectual and emotional struggles that came with his schooling.
Joyce's classmates admired the rebellious brilliance that questioned authority, butlike some bright students whom you may know- he remained an outsider, socially
and intellectually.
The religious training he received in the Jesuit schools also shaped Joyce, giving him
first a faith to believe in and then a weight to rebel against. Like Stephen, he was for
a time devoutly religious- then found that other attractions prevailed. By age
fourteen he had begun his sexual life furtively in Dublin brothels, and though he was
temporarily overwhelmed with remorse after a religious retreat held at his Catholic
school, he soon saw that he could not lead the life of virtuous obedience demanded
of a priest. Instead, he exchanged religious devotion for devotion to writing.
As a student at University College in Dublin, Joyce studied Latin and modern
languages. Although the Gaelic League and other groups were hoping to achieve
Irish cultural independence from Great Britain by promoting Irish literature and
language, the nonconformist Joyce spurned them. He felt closer to the less
provincial trends developing in continental Europe. He memorized whole pages of
Gustave Flaubert, the French pioneer of psychological realism and author of
Madame Bovary, whose precision of style and observation he envied. He also
admired the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, who shocked the world by
introducing previously forbidden subjects like venereal disease and immorality
among "respectable" citizens in his works. Both these writers drew, as Joyce would,
on all parts of life- the beautiful, the sordid, and the commonplace.
But realism wasn't the only influence on the young Joyce. The subtle and suggestive
poetic imagery of French poets like Stephane Mallarme and Arthur Rimbaud, who
used symbols to convey shades of meaning, appealed to his love for the musicality
of words and for the power of words to evoke unexpected psychological

associations. Their example, too, is followed in Portrait of the Artist.

Before Joyce had left the university he had already written several essays- one of
them on Ibsen- and he had formulated the core of his own theory of art, a
theory similar to Stephen's in Chapter Five. The renowned Irish poet William Butler
Yeats was impressed by the unkempt but precocious youth, and tried to draw Joyce
into the ranks of Irish intellectuals. But once again the arrogant newcomer rejected
his homeland, choosing to stay aloof because he felt Yeats and his group viewed the
Irish past too romantically and viewed its present with too much nationalism.
Instead, at the age of twenty, Joyce did what Stephen Dedalus is about to do at the
novel's end, and turned away from his family, his country, and his church. He ran off
to the continent. In 1903 he returned to Ireland to visit his dying mother, but soon
after her death (1904) he was again bound for Europe, accompanied by the
chambermaid with whom he had fallen in love, Nora Barnacle. The uneducated,
sensual Nora seemed an unlikely mate for Joyce, but she proved (despite Joyce's
cranky suspicions of her) to be a loyal, lifetime companion.
In Trieste (then a cosmopolitan city of Austria-Hungary), Joyce wrote incessantly and
eked out a living teaching English. He put together Dubliners, a group of stories
based on brief experiences he called "epiphanies." For Joyce, who believed in "the
significance of trivial things," an epiphany was a moment of spiritual revelation
sparked by a seemingly insignificant detail. A chance word, a particular gesture or
situation could suddenly reveal a significant truth about an entire life.
He also continued work on a novel he had started in Ireland. The first, brief version
of what we know as A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man had been
curtly rejected in 1904, before Joyce left Ireland. "I can't print what I can't
understand," wrote the British editor who refused it. Undaunted, Joyce expanded the
story to nearly one thousand pages. It now bore the title Stephen Hero, and was a
conventional Bildungsroman- a novel about a young man's moral and psychological
development. Other examples of such novels might include D. H. Lawrence's Sons
and Lovers (1913) or Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh (1903). (Some critics
would be more specific and call Stephen Hero and A Portrait of the Artist
Kunstlerromane- novels about the development of young artists.) Then, dissatisfied,
Joyce decided to recast his novel into a shorter, more original form. The final version
of Portrait of the Artist was stalled by British censorship and it was not until 1914
that Joyce, with the help of Yeats and the American poet Ezra Pound, was able to get
it printed in serial form in a "little review," The Egoist. Dubliners, long delayed by
printers' boycotts because of its supposed offensiveness, also appeared the same
year. In 1916 Portrait of the Artist was published in book form in England and the
United States, thanks only to the efforts of Harriet Weaver, editor of The Egoist, and

Joyce's faithful financial and moral supporter.

When Portrait of the Artist did appear, critical reaction was mixed. It was called
"garbage" and "brilliant but nasty," among other things. Some readers objected to
the graphic physical description, the irreverent treatment of religious matters, the
obscurity of its symbolism, and its experimental style. But it was also
praised by others as the most exciting English prose of the new century. Joyce, who
had fled to neutral Switzerland at the outbreak of World War I, was hailed as "a new
writer with a new form" who had broken with the tradition of the English novel.
What sets Portrait of the Artist apart from other confessional novels about the
development of a creative young man, like D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers and
Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh is that the action takes place mainly in the
mind of the central character. To portray that mind, Joyce began to develop a
technique called the interior monologue, or stream of consciousness, in which he
quoted directly the random, unshaped thoughts of his hero. Joyce used this
technique sparingly in Portrait of the Artist; he exploited it more fully in his later
novels.
Portrait of the Artist also differs from more conventional novels because it doesn't
show Stephen Dedalus' development in a straightforward chronological progression.
Nor do you see it through easily understood flashbacks to the past.
Instead Joyce presents a series of episodes that at first may seem unconnected but
which in fact are held together by use of language, images, and symbols. Joyce's
language changes as Stephen moves from infancy to manhood. The boy who is
"nicens little baby tuckoo" becomes the proud young artist who writes in his diary
brave promises about forging "the uncreated conscience of my race." Images and
symbols are repeated to reveal Stephen's innermost feelings. For example, a rose,
or rose color, represents a yearning for romantic love and beauty; the color yellow a
revulsion from sordid reality; and birds or flight, an aspiration to creative freedom
(and, less often, the threat of punishment and loss of freedom). Such images often
relate to larger motifs drawn from religion, philosophy, and myth. Joyce framed his
novel in a superstructure of myth (see the section on the Daedalus myth) to relate
his hero's personal experience to a universal story of creativity, daring, pride, and
self-discovery.
This constellation of words, images, and ideas gives Portrait of the Artist a complex
texture that offers you far more than a surface telling of Stephen Dedalus' story
ever could. It's not easy to explore all the layers of the novel.
Joyce removes familiar guideposts. Cause and effect is lost; scenes melt into one
another, and the passage of time is not specified. Joyce doesn't explain the many

references to places, ideas, and historical events that fill Stephen's mind. It's up to
you to make the connections. But if you do, you'll find the effort worthwhile.
You'll be participating with Stephen Dedalus in his journey of self-discovery.
After Portrait of the Artist, Joyce went even further in transforming the novel in his
later works, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Both are virtually plotless and try to
reflect the inner workings of the mind in language that demands much from the
reader. Stephen Dedalus appears again, though in a secondary role, as a struggling
young writer in Ulysses. This epic novel connects one day's wanderings of Leopold
Bloom, a Jewish Dubliner, with the twenty-year wanderings of the ancient Greek
hero Ulysses recounted in Homer's Odyssey.
Ulysses is in some ways a continuation of Portrait of the Artist.
Again, no English publisher would print Ulysses because of its sexual explicitness
and earthy language. It was printed privately in Paris in 1922.
Although its early chapters were published serially in the United States, further
publication was banned and it was not legally available in the United States again
until 1933, when a historic decision written by United States District Judge John
Woolsey ruled that it was not obscene.
By then Joyce was living in Paris, an international celebrity and the acknowledged
master of the modern literary movement. But even his warmest admirers cooled
when Finnegans Wake was published in 1939. He was disheartened by the hostile
reactions to the extremely obscure language and references in what he felt was his
masterwork, the depiction of a cosmic world, built from the dreams of one man in
the course of a night's sleep.
Joyce was also increasingly depressed by his failing eyesight, as well as his
daughter Lucia's mental illness. His reliance on alcohol increased. Once again a
world war sent him into exile in neutral Switzerland. Joyce died in Zurich in 1941.
James Joyce had lived to write. He became a priest of art, as he (Stephen) had
promised in Portrait of the Artist. Because of his original use of language to tell a
story that simultaneously combined mankind's great myths, individual human
psychology, and the details of everyday life, Joyce is now held by many to be the
most influential prose writer of this century. His influence was felt by many others,
including Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, and Samuel
Beckett. He has left his mark on any writer who uses the stream-of-consciousness
technique (see the section on Style), or employs language in a fresh and punning
way. And for many writers, like the Anglo-American poet T. S. Eliot, his use of myth

to give shape to the chaos of modern life had "the importance of a scientific
discovery."
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Within the novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce creates a fictionalized
text made up of largely autobiographical components. This leaves the reader with the
questions "which parts are directly linked back to Joyce's own life?" and "how much liberty
did Joyce take in relating these facts to his readers?" In order to shed light on these topics I
will highlight some of the relevant biographical information which resonates strongly within
Portrait.
James Joyce is seen in the novel's main character, Stephen Dedalus. In Dedalus the reader
will recognize a number of connections between the Dedalus and the author. Tracing
Stephen's intellectual develoment, it is clear that he attended the same schools (Clongowes,
Belvedere, Christian Brothers, and University College) as Joyce for the same periods of time.
Moreover, Stephens familial background mirrors Joyces as he comes from a large family
with a non-descript number of siblings, lives with his uncle for a period of time, and his
family is plagued by financial insecurity. These aside, the most striking similarities between
Dedalus and Joyce are their inner workings. We find Joyce and Dedalus torn between pious
upbringings and a strong sense of rebellion. We find both Dedalus and Joyce generous to
the point of being a character flaw as both waste prize monies earned in essay contests by
purchasing frivolous gifts for family members. In addition to his enormous generosity, Joyce,
like Dedalus, also falls victim to sexual passions which led to several rendezvous with
prostitutes.
John Stanislaus Joyce is known as Simon Dedalus in Portrait. There are a number of
similarities between the actual person and the character. Both John and Simon share a
common background in medicine, but chose to work for unrelated government positions.
The financial health of Mr. Joyce and Mr. Dedalus are also in line with each other, as both
had severe debt (John Joyce had six mortgages). The Christmas dinner scene when Mr.
Dedalus passionately defends Charles Parnell coheres nicely with John Joyces interest as he

canvassed his tenants votes for members of Parnells party in the General Election. This
political fervor for Parnellites was one of the events that precipitated his job loss from the
Rates Office.
William O'Connell is the basis for Uncle Charles in Portait, Affectionately known as Uncle
Bill, OConnell stayed with the Joyces for six years after the death of his wife. James Joyce
had a strong bond with Uncle Bill which was much the same as his relationship and frequent
walks with Uncle Charles.
Dante Conway is a direct representation of her real-life counterpart who bears the same
name. With the character of Dante the reader can immediately see the connection between
the actual Dante and the character through the lens of religion. Analyzing the Christmas
dinner scene, as well as her reproaching young James for taking an interest in a Protestant
girl, the reader finds Dantes character to be a fanatical Catholic. Similarly, the actual Dante
was a former nun in Pennsylvania.
Fr. James Daly was the inspiration for Fr. Dolan in Portrait. Fr. Daly was a stern taskmaster
who Joyce confronted over his broken glasses in 1888. This encounter with Daly led to the
creation of the Fr. Dolan scene where Dolan hit Joyces hand for allegedly lying about his
broken glasses.
Albrecht Connolly inspired the character, Heron in Portrait. Joyce and Connolly were rivals
much like his relationship with Heron. Both Connolly and Heron antagonized Joyce/Dedalus
about his affinity toward Byronic poetry calling him a poet for uneducated people (Joyce
56). In his life, as was the case in the novel, Joyce defended Byron from Connollys attacks
and was, in turn, attacked for his support.
Vincent Cosgrave and John Francis Byrne developed into the characters Lynch and
Cranly. Joyces friendship with Cosgrave and Byrne corresponded well with the novels
depiction of the relationship between Dedalus, Cranly, and Lynch in that both were around
to engage Joyce intellectually, ultimately aiding in Joyces development of his theory of
aesthetics.

SUBJECT: MODERN FICTIONASSIGNMENT: A POTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS

AYOUNG MAN AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVELDATE: 30 OCT, 2012Auto biographical
novel is a significant genre of literature. It is a kind of novelin which the author or narrator

records or narrates his own experiences of lifeby adding fictional elements. In this novel
character, themes and incidents aretaking from authors real life; but they are presented in
exaggerated manner.Thus presentation of real life experiences in a modified or exaggerated form
iscalled an auto biographical novel.A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semiautobiographical novel aboutthe education of a young Irishman, Stephen Dedalus, whose
background hasmuch in common with Joyces. As far as its autobiographical elements
areconcerned it can be seen as a Bildungsroman which describes the youthfuldevelopment of
the central character and as aesthetic autobiography orkunstlerroman(German, meaning a
novel about an artist) .Joyce and Stephen almost merge but quite often a distance is kept though
it isnever too great. This kind of management of distance allows Joyce to bringirony also in play
at places but even that is never allowed to become too hard-hitting. A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man continues to be regarded as acentral text of early twentieth century modernism.A
Portrait of The Artist As a Young Man is based on a literal transcript of thefirst twenty years of
Joyces life. If anything, it is more candid than otherautobiographies. It is distinguished from
them by its emphasis on theemotional and intellectual adventures of its protagonist. Joyces own
life had adirect bearing on A Portrait. Literally A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Mancovers the
childhood and adolescence of Stephen Dedalus.We may deal with the title of this novel. As the
phrase Portrait of the Artisthints at the self-portraiture of Joyce, the other phrase as a young
man hintsat it universal aspects or generalization. Stephen is young Joyce, purified inand
projected from the human imagination of the developed artist who must,
in the words of Stephen, try slowly and humbly and constantly to express, topress out again,
from the gross earth or what it brings forth, from sound andshape and colour which are the prison
gates of our soul, an image of thebeauty we have come to understand. Thus Joyce uses his
personal life as aframework for his novel but is free to revise his biography for artistic
purposesor remodeled it, which can assert the growth of artist.Novel has some clear and
obvious autobiographical elements. James Joyce(1882-1941), like the novels central figure
Stephen Dedalus, was born in aDublin-based Irish Catholic family which in his early years was
well off. LikeStephen in the novel, Joyce attended the elite Jesuit Clongowes Woodschool, and
later Belvedere, and like Stephen he studied Arts subjects atUniversity College Dublin.At the
center of the story is Stephens rejection of his Roman Catholicupbringing and his growing
confidence as a writer. Joyces upbringing andeducation had much in common with that of the
fictional Stephen Dedalus in APortrait of the Artist as a Young Man.The religious training he
received in the Jesuit schools also shaped Joyce,giving him first a faith to believe in and then a
weight to rebel against. LikeStephen, he was for a time devoutly religious- then found that other
attractionsprevailed.The conflict between politics and religion very much influenced Joyce. On
oneside, there was Dante with her strong faith in the Catholic Church. On theother side was his
fathers staunch nationalism. Fictional character Stephenalso experiences the same situation. The
conflict between religion and politicsin Joyces house appears at the Christmas dinner where Mr.
Casey retortsDante by asking, in reference to Parnell, "Are we not to follow the man thatwas
born to lead us? _ a traitor to his country! replied Dante. A traitor, anadulterer! The priests were
right to abandon him. Since Joyces father used towork for Parnell, Joyce was constantly
exposed to his name, just as Stephenkeeps hearing about Parnell in section one. Joyce was
extremely receptive tothe image of Parnell.In a novel, we are essentially given a window into
Stephens consciousness,
and the whole world is unveiled to us through that single aperture. Thenarrative prose follows
and reflects the stages of Stephens intellectualdevelopment, whether imitating the childlike

simplicity of his earliest memoriesor the thrilling awareness of his artistic awakening. It swoops
when Stephen ishigh; it crashes when he is brought low. It congeals in the murky muddle of
aJesuit lecture, and it skips and stutters and swirls when chasing the thoughtsof an awakening
poet. Like Stephen, it can be beautiful and bombastic, wittyand self-pitying.James Joyce, like
Stephen, considered and rejected a career as a Jesuitpriest. But Stephen Dedalus is an artistic
creation, and it would be naive tobelieve that everything he thinks, feels, and does reflects
similar elements inJoyces own life.Further there are other aspects of Joyces life that find more
or less a directecho in the novel. Alike Joyce Stephen too shares a large family. The
familyspoverty and its frequent changes of house both happen in Joyce and Stephen.Like
Stephen, Joyce had early experiences with prostitutes during his teenageyears and struggled with
questions of faith. Like Stephen, Joyce was the sonof a religious mother and a financially inept
father. Like Stephen, Joyce wasthe eldest of ten children and received his education at Jesuit
schools. LikeStephen, Joyce left Ireland to pursue the life of a poet and writer. Joyce
beganworking on the stories that formed the foundation of the novel as early as1903, after the
death of his mother. Previous to the publication of Portrait,Joyce had published several stories
under the pseudonym "StephenDedalus."Stephens thoughts, associations, feelings, and language
(both cerebral andverbal) serve as the primary vehicles by which the reader shares with
Stephenthe pain and pleasures of adolescence, as well as the exhilaratingexperiences of
intellectual, sexual, and spiritual discoveries which portraysJames feelings at his times.All the
features of Modernism influenced James greatly. Living in a society ofsuch problems and issues;
his novel also throws light on these circumstancesand all these play a significant part in making
this novel autobiographical.Joyces novel reflects the various literary influences to which he was
exposed,
while forming a fictionalized autobiography of the author. When consideringJoyces life in
connection to Portrait, the parallels between Stephen and Joycebecome transparent. This
connection allows a closer observation of the novelto discover the factors that influenced the
writer.In conclusion, Stephen is a fictional representation of Joyces art. Stephenexists, as does
the novel, as an example of the authors "handiwork," behindwhich Joyce is "invisible, refined
out of existence, indifferent . . ." and,probably if he had his way in the matter, is still standing
concealedsomewhere, "paring his nails.