Writing Feedback / Jame Joyce's Portrait [11]

Hey, this is my first time doing something like this. I am a overall bad writer for the most part when it comes to grammar and things of that nature. So, I was wondering if you could look over my paper and improve and guide on the content. I am writing a paper about Jame Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Thanks.

It is hard to describe James Joyce's novel "A Portrait of the Artist of a Young man". The genre of the novel seems to be a coming of age story about a person's life named Stephen Dedalus. Portrait of the Artist was Joyce's first piece of work; this novel is usually described as a look of his early life (Schoenberg, 2005). Instead of simply making a book about himself growing up through those harsh times in Ireland, he uses a fictional character, perhaps an alter-ego even of himself to make the story more interesting.

Before moving onto the coming of age content of the novel, I want to look over how Joyce wrote his novel. The style he wrote it seems unique, while I would not say that I am a scholar of books, I will say I have knowledge on books. The way that Joyce handled the dialogue surprises me. The only other book that I have read that is similar in the way he handles dialogue is "Blindness" (Saramago, 1995). How the Blindness and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is similar is the handle of quotes. For Blindness, the usages of quotes is completely thrown out of the story, while A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, uses dash to show when there is dialogue in action. I just found that comparison of refusing to use quotes as a very interesting concept for the book.

The biggest appeal I see of Portrait of the Artist, that it is a coming-of-age novel. The novel starts out with Joyce's character Stephen as a child slowly becoming to bloom into a man who knows what he wants in life while facing turmoil in between his life. The novel is strengthened even more that some of the content presented in the story did occur in James Joyce's life. In the beginning of the book, we are given a baby with Stephen being told nursery rhymes. In the next portion, we are presented with a three year old Stephen starting to figure out the world around him. Then the story starts looking at Stephen going to school and being bullied around like any other kid would be. School seemed to be a very important feature for Stephen like any other boy would be, he seemed like he had a typical life at school. He was bullied around, learned about his religion, and had a tough time with school. I believe James Joyce wanted to show us how much religion had an effect on a person's life. I want to believe that Stephen first introduction to the impact of religion was the Christmas dinner he had with his family and his old nursery, Dante. There was a major fight between the political side of Ireland and the Catholic Church interference with the Ireland political standpoint. I do not think that religion had a major impact of Stephen until the end of Chapter 2 where Stephen accidentally enters a brothel in Dublin and has his first sexual experience. After that event, Stephen feels disgusting, and extremely sinful in the eyes of God. Stephen starts to be consume by the feelings of the sin he has performed and starts to believe it is becoming worse by showing features that are the seven deadly sins, gluttony and sloth. Stephen around this time was fourteen; I found this part of the story very intriguing because I was very religious around that age as well. I felt that I was extremely sinful and tried to perform many deeds for the church until a later period time of my life. Near Chapter 4, Stephen starts to think about making the priesthood as a vocation for his life. Stephen images his life as a priest and the power that he would have if he joined the clergy. As he thought about it, he starts to believe that priesthood would not be the best vocation for him to pursue, this quote helped a lot in explaining it, "He was destined to learn his own wisdom apart from others or to learn the wisdom of others himself wandering among the snares of the world." (Joyce, 1964). In the last chapter, Stephen becomes a student in the University still not knowing of what he wants to do with his life. There were several people who influence Stephen to follow his path as an artist. I believe these people were the dean, and Emma. Near the end of the novel, Stephen decides to leave Ireland, his family, and religion brought by a brilliant quote presented by him, "I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, fatherland, or my church." (Joyce, 1964). It was interesting to read of what the introduction had to say about Stephen leaving Ireland, and I think it is said quite well, "Stephen is a remarkable precisely because he refuses to become a 'character; Ireland has to be left because it is full of them."(Deane, 1992).

James Joyce's novel, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" is simply a brilliant coming of age novel. The way that James Joyce wrote the book is extremely hard to comprehend at times. Joyce's usage of excluding quotation marks from the book and use dashes instead is an interesting concept which I enjoy seeing. Stephen's life is an interesting read, and more importantly a more believable read, since I could connect some points of my life to Joyce's character.