James Baquet

    “Ulysses,” by the Irish expat author James Joyce (1882-1941), was the No. 1 novel on the Modern Library’s list of “Greatest Books of the 20th Century.” Cementing his place as one of the greatest writers of the century (if not the greatest) is that his “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” is No. 3. That gives Joyce two of the top three positions.

    “Portrait” is very much an autobiographical work. In discussing “Ulysses,” we mentioned a character named Stephen Dedalus; he is the protagonist of “Portrait,” published six years before “Ulysses.”

    The name Stephen Dedalus itself is a good example of Joyce’s allusions to Western tradition: Stephen was the first martyr in the history of the Christian church. Just so, this Stephen feels (as did Joyce) that his life is being sacrificed for the demands of his society.

    “Dedalus” references Daedalus, the craftsman who formed a labyrinth for a king and then had to fashion wings so he and his son could escape. This also marks Stephen as a representative of Joyce, since part of Joyce’s personal struggle was to escape what he felt was the restricting nature of his upbringing in Catholic Ireland. In Chapter 5, for instance, Stephen says, “When the soul of a man is born in this country [Ireland] there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.”

    As for the plot, “Portrait” follows young Stephen from earliest childhood, with memories of how his parents spoke to him expressed in baby talk: “Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo…”

    As Stephen grows older, the language grows more sophisticated, until near the end he is expressing thoughts from his student days in high-flown speech. His main struggle has been between living a spiritual life and one devoted to esthetics; in the end he — again, like Joyce — chooses to leave Ireland for the larger world.

    Vocabulary

    Which word above means:

    1. holding back

    2. indirect references

    3. maze, twisting path

    4. making solid, confirming

    5. raising of a child

    6. make, create

    7. lofty, pretentious

    8. one who dies for what he believes

    9. gave up for the sake of something larger

    10. main character in a story