A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man explores what it means to become an artist. Stephen’s decision at the end of the novel—to leave his family and friends behind and go into exile in order to become an artist—suggests that Joyce sees the artist as a necessarily isolated figure.

James Joyce (1882-1941) is a colossus of modernist fiction. Joyce combined stream-of-consciousness, absurdist drama, mythical parallelism, and other techniques in a formal mélange that has had a profound impact on other modernists and future generations of novelists.

James Joyce uses mostly the third-person point of view in the narrative style of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but he keeps that viewpoint limited. Instead of being omniscient, as is often the case with the third person viewpoint, Joyce’s outside narrator is limited in his scope.

five chapters

a statement that presents a given idea in new language. What, according to Father Arnell, are the two possible places a soul can go at the time of death? God will send a soul either to the abode of bliss or to purgatory to wait for the final judgment. People who refuse to live by God’s laws go to hell.

Mr. Casey tells a story of being accosted by an old Catholic woman who had degraded the name of Parnell and the name of the woman with whom Parnell had an adulterous affair. Casey had ended up spitting on the old woman.

Eileen Vance A young girl who lives near Stephen when he is a young boy. When Stephen tells Dante that he wants to marry Eileen, Dante is enraged because Eileen is a Protestant.

six years old

Clongowes Wood College

Stephen chooses exile from his native land mainly because of his growing disenchantment with Irish society on many levels. Indeed, his final decision to fly the nets which are impeding his development as an artist is achieved following a series of struggles with authority from which he ultimately decides to flee.