Portrait
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Reading this book maybe quite difficult to follow, but it has many lessons of individual growth to teach us. In the this great novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, we see evident, that the main character, Stephan Dedalus, goes through life with the utmost changes ranging from being religious to hanging out in bars and getting drunk with women. Stephan goes through life wondering what he should do with it. Many changes occur in his life and because of that, this novel makes it interesting yet, hard to follow. In this essay, we will look at how Stephan grows throughout his life has a young boy to an adult.
Religion is central to the life of Stephen Dedalus the child. He was reared in a strict, if not harmonious, Catholic family. The severity of his parents, trying to raise him to be a good Catholic man, is evidenced by statements such as, "Pull out his eyes/ Apologize/ Apologize/ Pull put his eyes." (page 4) This strict conformity shapes Stephen's life early in boarding school. Even as he is following the precepts of his Catholic school, however, a disillusionment becomes evident in his thoughts...