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Big Boy Stevie


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man follows a pattern of ending each chapter with a climactic ending which shows Stephen's development in a serious fashion. Chapter one ends with “the fellows” cheering for Stephen’s accomplishment and lifting him onto their shoulders. The next chapter ends with his “romantic encounter” with a prostitute, the third with his confession and spiritual reawakening, and the fourth with his epiphany on the beach.
The climax tends to resolve the conflict Stephen has faced in the chapter. In the first chapter, for example, Stephen struggles to be accepted by the other children at his school. His frustration reaches fever pitch when he father Dolan unfairly punishes him in front of his class. He bravely faces his fears and confronts his teacher. When he tells his classmates what he did, they cheer loudly and lift him up.
Portrait also follows a pattern of undermining each climactic moment at the beginning of the next chapter, seemingly as a reminder not to take the young Stephen so seriously. Chapter two begins in the same place as chapter one: Stephen watching the fellows play without him. While they’ve gotten over bullying Dedalus, they still haven’t really accepted him into their fold. We also see Simon and father Dolan chuckling at Stephen for being such a serious young man. They cut down the “big boy Dedalus” we saw at the end of chapter one.
Each chapter concludes with two steps forward, followed in the next chapter by a step back. The beginning of each chapter undermines the resolution of the previous one. While chapter two depicts a more mature and brave Stephen, we are reminded that he is not quite the hero depicted in chapter one.

Comments

  1. OthnielFebruary 2, 2019 at 11:20 AM

    Joyce really does undermine all of Stephen's "accomplishments" in a way that makes Stephen seem less, shall I say, grown-up than he appears in some scenes in the book. Joyce is both trying to make Stephen seem like a really adept young man while also showing that he is sort of childish for doing some of the things he does.

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  2. Matthew TangFebruary 2, 2019 at 12:31 PM

    We've discussed this pattern of Stephen's growing moments at the end of chapters being immediately undermined in the beginning of the following chapter. Maybe it is Joyce just poking fun at Stephen reading way too much into his experience, perhaps it's also a realistic depiction. We often go through ordeals, and in the moment we think they matter a lot more than they actually do. After it is resolved however, we begin to see that it really wasn't as significant as we thought.

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  3. AnonymousFebruary 2, 2019 at 5:14 PM

    I kept asking myself what the real moment was when stephen matures. I don't think joyce intended for their to be one moment. Instead he describes a continual development which often seems ironic or backwards. While this seemed comical it's also useful development. Perhaps it's a sign of Joyce's maturity that he could acknowledge his own adolescence and changing views.

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  4. Anya Kaplan-HartnettFebruary 2, 2019 at 9:27 PM

    I like how you describe Stephen's coming of age as "two steps forward, one step back". That's basically how growing up works. It's easy to feel very grown up after successfully completing a challenge, but then you realize that you're still kind of immature. My favorite example of this pattern in the text is when Stephen goes from beach epiphany/artistic vision to mom washing his ears.

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