Through James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus struggles to overcome social and religious preconceptions of his life's purpose in order to discover his true identity. He must learn to escape, not only social expectations and regulations, but, his own prim and proper, reserved mindset. For when he frees himself of these shackles, these self-made and socially implied confinements, he is able to embrace his own talents and express his true self fully.
As a child, Stephen is overly cautious to speak his mind. Which, for most children is not uncommon. Be it shyness or embarrassment, many children are frightened of giving their true opinion. But Stephen is different. He is not afraid to give an answer, he's afraid to be wrong. Afraid of judgment. Of looking foolish in front of others. The other children mock him for this; to which Joyce reflects, “He felt his whole body hot and confused in a moment. What
was the right answer to the question? He had given two and still Wells laughed.
But Wells must know the right answer” (Joyce 8). Stephen yearns for a concrete answer. Something to tell him whether he is right. Or wrong. Like Catholicism. There is a distinct definition of sin. Of the afterlife. Of Heaven. Or Damnation. And he wants the same clarity in his life. But when there is no correct answer, he's disgruntled. Irked by truth. And as Stephen matures, he realizes that there is not a concrete answer for everything. Like his urges, his passions and desires. Stephen begins to notice his uniqueness and singularity. “He saw clearly, too, his own futile isolation. He had not gone one step nearer the lives he had sought to approach nor bridged the restless shame and rancour that had divided him from mother and brother and sister… He turned to appease the fierce longings of his heart before which everything else was idle and alien” (87). Not even his family understands him, instead they instill shame and rancour and isolate Stephen further. And according to his Catholic teachings, he must suppress his urges. He is supposed to be Pure, Virginal and act in the image of God. But the temptation is too great; he frequents the brothels in his town, in full recognition of his sin. And it eats at him. By acting upon his natural, inherent sexuality and emotions, he betrays the church. By thinking freely, contemplating the existence of a God and God's purpose, he opposes all of his prior teachings. And it's as if he fails himself--as if he fails to meet his expectation of who he should be. And in his mind, he is a man of God. He feels he must confess his sins and reaffirm his faith. He likes the boundaries. Or he thinks he does.
As Stephen contemplates his becoming a priest, he realizes that his life, his idealized image of who he should be, cannot be fulfilled under oppressive Catholic statutes: “Then he wondered at the vagueness of his wonder, at the
remoteness of his own soul from what he had hitherto imagined her sanctuary, at
the frail hold which so many years of order and obedience had of him when once
a definite and irrevocable act of his threatened to end for ever, in time and
eternity, his freedom” (141). As he comes to this realization, he recognizes the limits he has placed upon himself. He asks himself, “Could it be that he, Stephen Dedalus, had done
these things? … The leprous company of his sins closed about him, breathing
upon him, bending over him from all sides” (121). Although he asks this before his realization of his incompatibility with Catholicism, it's as if this thought sparks the initial doubt in his future as a priest. He asks almost in awe, "Could it be that he, Stephen Dedalus, had done these things?" It's as if his idealized conception of who he should be collides with the reality of his sins. The realization of his sin in combination with his Catholic up-bringing produces an immense moral burden for Stephen, "the leprous company of his sins." In order to allow himself to progress both mentally and spiritually, Stephen must escape the crushing guilt, "breathing upon him, bending over him from all sides." The Catholic interpretation of the Bible is fairly concrete. Their answers to life's mysteries are black and white--there is no grey area. Sin is sin. Profane is profane. And God's will is almighty. But Stephen has blurred the lines between what he thinks is acceptable versus what the church believes.
His divergent thinking leads him to discover his true future, his purpose in life. To create. He pursues beauty and esthetics, surrounds himself in light. He becomes the artist--the poet. He explains, “ ‘Art... is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end,’ ” and later reflects in his writing, “Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race” (186)(229). He no longer wants such stern definition between right and wrong. Instead he wants to experience life and the wonders of the world. He wants to experience the people. Their struggles, their stories. He wants to understand, not to judge.
His divergent thinking leads him to discover his true future, his purpose in life. To create. He pursues beauty and esthetics, surrounds himself in light. He becomes the artist--the poet. He explains, “ ‘Art... is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end,’ ” and later reflects in his writing, “Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race” (186)(229). He no longer wants such stern definition between right and wrong. Instead he wants to experience life and the wonders of the world. He wants to experience the people. Their struggles, their stories. He wants to understand, not to judge.
