A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

This chapter continues the theme of Struggling Spirituality. Following his confession, Stephen gives up his sinful ways and becomes very devoted to God. He spends most of his time thinking about religion and his personal relationship with the divine, while also performing rituals and sacraments to demonstrate his faith. However, this religious revival is only temporary. To some degree, Stephen’s public performance of devotion is an attempt to convince himself (more than the rest of the world) that he believes in God and religion. Stephen’s little rituals function almost as a parody of devoutness, as though his latest effort at artistic expression is to write religion into his own life through small gestures. In this moment, however, Stephen is still not convinced by his own writing. Just as he cannot show his love poems to Emma, nor include full poems in the narrative of the novel, he cannot quite convince himself of his belief in God. His demonstrations of devotion are an act of self-delusion, and they are challenged as the chapter progresses.

Stephen’s attempt to show himself how much he believes in God cannot suppress all his urges. Even though he tries to “mortify” (171) his senses, this is impossible. As such a sensory individual, Stephen’s perception of the world is built on a foundation of sights, sounds, smells, and touches. Though he tries to dull these senses, he cannot help but feel his emotions remerge from within him. The need to feel and experience the world cannot be denied, even if Stephen is only broadly aware of how this artistic desire to comprehend and codify everything is related to his spirituality. When Stephen is given the possibility of becoming a priest in the future, Stephen is forced to confront the fact that Art, Language, and Liberation are intrinsically tied for him and are essential to his identity. He briefly entertains the idea of becoming a priest, but he gets stuck on the thought of a “passionless” life. This is something he could not endure, and it makes him notice the cracks in his façade of devotion.

Additionally, when he imagines himself as a priest, he can only perceive himself from the position of an outsider. He sees himself publicly performing the rituals and receiving the adoration of the congregation; to Stephen, religious devotion remains fundamentally a performance, and the religious Stephen is a fictional character who he perceives from the outside. Stephen knows that he will not be a priest, and the cracks in his belief begin to widen. Much like the underwhelming confession at the end of Chapter 3, the offer of a future in the priesthood is a moment in which Stephen palpably feels the hollowness of religious devotion in his mind. The fact that the statue of Mary, a holy symbol who previously brought him comfort, has no effect on him after this is a sign that Stephen’s days of attempting to lead a holy life are numbered.

However, Stephen has not yet fully committed himself to art. Instead, he turns to the idea of a future in academia. He is no longer satisfied with the idea of devoting his life to religion forever, and his mother’s disapproval of his departure from the path sparks that old sense of rebellion in him. However, he is not interested in returning to his “sinful” lifestyle of excess, either. Academia, for him, seems like a hitherto undiscovered third path—a secret exit, something new upon which to pin his hopes for the future. Even in this, Stephen daydreams of adventure, which foreshadows his future dissatisfaction with the rigid structure of a university life.

Toward the end of the chapter, Stephen walks through Dublin. This time, he is not setting out on a quest to satisfy his sexual urges, nor is he publicly performing an act of devotion. This walk through the city is a moment of symbolic synthesis. Throughout the novel, Stephen has felt the competing forces of various institutions in his life. Chief among these are his religious mother and his wayward father. His mother always advocated for religion, but Stephen has now rejected this as a possible future. Meanwhile, Stephen has long abandoned the prospect of following in his father’s footsteps. Where Stephen’s mother represents religion, Simon represents the chaos of secular Ireland with his nostalgic reveries, his alcohol consumption, and his flirtatious demeanor. While Stephen’s mother always advocated for the church, his father spoke most passionately about Ireland itself, freed from the institutions that bind it. Stephen’s mother and her religion are a thesis of the world, a way to explain existence through God and spirituality. His father is the antithesis, a desire for a free and secular Ireland which—while potentially impoverished and chaotic—is liberated from the old institutions.

In many ways, Stephen’s identity is, despite his pursuits of independence, a product of his parents’ beliefs and lifestyles. But after deciding that his future does not belong to the church, Stephen has ultimately rejected them both. He sees no future in religion, nor in the society around him. Stephen is gradually moving toward a synthesis of religion and secular society, but one which will compel him to leave Ireland forever. His walk through the streets of Dublin is a symbol of this synthesis, in which he begins to see the city—and the country of Ireland—as another institution from which he must escape.

These thoughts manifest, prompted by comments from his peers, in a rumination on his namesake, Daedalus. This once again shows how art and language are ever-present in Stephen’s thoughts. While he is no longer bothered by his peers’ words and actions, their teasing calls cause him to retreat, once again, into his own head. He views his name as a “prophecy,” and he personally relates to Daedalus’s story. He envisions the makeshift wings from the story, and the daydream moves him more deeply than any of his plays at religious devotion ever did. Like his Greek namesake, Stephen feels he must escape the maze that has trapped him, and the very idea of grasping that freedom nearly overwhelms him. This, his loss of religious dedication, and his detachment from his crumbling family combine to foreshadow Stephen’s ultimate departure from Ireland.