Portrait of the Artist as a young man

Portrait of the Artist as a young man is an autobiographical novel by the prominent and modernist Irish writer James Joyce. It depicts Stephen’s life transforming from a child to a young man to an artist, also it explores the character’s mind and psyche. It is narrated from an individual perspective through Stephen’s mind, Stephen is James. James uses Stephen Daedalus and represents him as a mythical character to show that he is imprisoned in society and so that he can be able to escape from his prison.

 

As an Irish man James Joyce is totally against the Irish social constraints. He feels that the Environment limits him to a world lacking in creativity and innovation. Also, the strict religion imposes rules that press him down; he must “admit” and “confess” and “apologize” even when he feels innocent, to the point that he feels that his independent spirit is knocked down. To get out from this locked world, James uses the mythical character Stephen Daedalus to set free the Irish prisoner that lies within him.

 

James Joyce chooses the name Stephen Daedalus to relate his hero with the mythical Greek hero, Daedalus. In Greek myth, Daedalus was an Architect, and Artisan. During the period of King Minos and by his request, Daedalus built a labyrinth to contain a monster called the Minotaur, half bull and half man. Later, Daedalus and his son Iacrus were both confined in this labyrinth. It was so complex that even Daedalus could not find his way out. The same thing for Stephen, he is stuck in a maze. To him everything is seen as a maze, the school, Dublin and even his mind is a complex maze filled with endless, circular questions.

 

For he sets free out of his restraints, and the feelings that the world presses on him and his proud spirit that cannot bear the painful burden of reality, he searches for the meaning of his strange name, and by the fourth chapter he comes to realize that he is caught in a maze just like Daedalus . Yet Stephen opens his own wings of poetry as a creative Artist so he can escape from this locked world, and not wings of wax as Daedalus did. He creates an adequate arena for his talents.

 

 A portrait of the Artist as a young man by the modernist Irish writer is an autobiographical novel that tell us about Stephen’s life through his mind transforming from a child to a young man to an artist. James represents Stephen as a mythical character to show that he is imprisoned in society and so that he can be able to escape from his prison. Stephen opens his own wings of poetry as a creative Artist creating an adequate arena for his talents