Epiphanies in The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

The portrait of the Artist as a young man is one of the most famous books of Modern literature, and one
of the greatest of British literature. The author, James Joyce, was born on February 2, 1882, in the town of
Rathgar, near Dublin, Ireland. He was the oldest of ten children born to a modest family. The similarities
between his life and that of Stephen Dedalus are striking. Both fathers are unable to support the family, and
their mothers are very religious Catholics. Joyce, as well as Stephen, is sent for a period of time to Clongowes
Wood College, a prestigious boarding school, and then to Belvedere College, where both discover their inner
identity and experience religiousness, love and art. The novel also touches the theme of nationalism, and the
political struggle between the Irish Protestants and the Catholics. The novel is very much appreciated because
of the technique used, namely the stream of consciousness, showing the inner works of the human mind, and
time dislocations. Joyce also uses flashes of perception or understanding which are called by the literary critique
‘epiphanies’.
James Joyce is, together with Virginia Woolf, the master of the stream of consciousness technique. His
major novels: Ulysses, the Dubliners, and The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man all contain various degrees
of incursions into the human mind, through modernist aestheticism. The portrait of the artist as a young man is
an atypical bildungsroman, in that it shows the transformation of the main character, but it is the transformation
of his mind that Joyce is interested in. In the first chapter, the very young Stephen is only capable of describing
his world in simple words and phrases. He cannot be very articulate in expressing the sensations that he
experiences, just like a child, who cannot make the connection between cause and effect. Later, when he is at
school, Stephen becomes a teenager obsessed with religion, and he is able to think in a clearer, more adult
manner. Paragraphs are more logically ordered than in the opening sections of the novel, and thoughts follow
logically. Stephen's mind is more mature and he is now more coherently aware of his surroundings. However,
he is very passionate about his belief in church and in God, in the Catholic religion, and therefore he is not a
very rational person yet. Only when he is at university, in the final chapter, does Stephen appear to be truly
rational. By the end of the novel, Joyce succeeds to render a portrait of a mind that has achieved not only
emotional, but also intellectual and artistic maturity.
Another major theme in ‘The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ is religious belief, or ironically
enough, the lack of belief. At first, Stephen Dedalus experiences sin: he repeatedly sleeps with prostitutes and
ignores Christian values. This can be called his lack of belief, in the general morals of humankind, and in
romantic relationships. Stephen Dedalus, as well as Joyce himself, was born to a religious Catholic family, and
was sent to a religious type of school as a teenager. So his path is changed, from that of a sinner, to that of a
devout Catholic, blindly following religious doctrine. The changing point is the speech held by Father Arnall:
one of Stephen’s epiphanies. This epiphany is the moment when Stephen realizes he does not want to be a
sinner anymore, and later he realizes that he does not want to join the clergy either, because the life of a priest is
far too harsh and it requires abstinence from a great deal of things.
In Christianity, the Epiphany refers to the realization that Christ is the son of God. Western churches
generally celebrate the Adoration of the Magi as the Incarnation of the infant Christ, and celebrate the Feast of
the Epiphany on the 6th of January. Traditionally, Eastern churches celebrated Epiphany (or Theophany) in
relation with Christ's baptism by John the Baptist and celebrated it on the 19th. Protestant churches often
celebrate Epiphany as a season.
Generally speaking, epiphany is a term used to refer to the situation when a person realizes their
religious faith or when they are convinced that an event was caused by a deity or being of their faith. Epiphanies
have also appeared in other areas, not necessarily in religion. There are examples of sudden comprehension in
technology and the sciences. An example of a famous epiphany is Archimedes' sudden realization of how to
estimate the volume of a given mass, a moment when he shouted the well-known "Eureka!", which means "I
have found it!". Other examples of famous epiphanies are the moments when, Albert Einstein, as a young child,
realized the forces which make a compass move, or the flash of understanding when Charles Darwin's , aboard
the Beagle, understood the principle of natural selection and origins of the species.
In literature the term was first applied by James Joyce, who called his early experimentations with short
prose passages “epiphanies”. Such moments of insight appear frequently in Joyce’s short stories, published in
1914 , the Dubliners. The last short story in The Dubliners,“The Dead”, shows Joyce’s idea of epiphany, in the
concluding paragraphs. Gabriel, the major character in the story, lying beside his wife has a sudden realization
of real love.
In the portrait of the artist as a young man, the most notable epiphany is the one when Stephen Dedalus,
as he waits impatiently for the University entrance examination results, is fascinated by the girl’s gracefulness
and innocence. As he sits peaceful, contemplating this girl’s looks, Stephen realizes what a woman’s essence
really is, he perceives her inner beauty as well as her outer beauty, and finally, he understands the nature of
love. Stepen Dedalus, as a teenager, has ‘met’ sexuality with a prostitute, and therefore did not understand or
appreciate love. At the moment of this epiphany, we may as well consider that he is on his way to fall in love
with this girl, judging by the way in which he describes her and the comparisons he uses. Joyce compares the
girl to a delicate, white sea bird. Just like fairies, her hair is fair and her face is ‘mortally beautiful’. Her
silhouette appears slim and soft like a white feathered dove. The portrait of the girl is close to that of an angel, a
dove ( a comparison that reminds us of Shakespeare); however, the person who is admiring her, Stephen, is not
innocent in what love is concerned, and his words are filled with expectation and lovers’ impatience.
Indeed, Joyce’s words flow easily and uninterruptedly, like a fast and tumultuous river, making this
passage seem more like a poem than a piece of prose. Although Joyce does not use the delimitations of poetry,
such as lines and verses, each part of the body described constitutes itself exactly like a stanza, and the
repetitions ‘her bosom was as a bird’s soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some dark plumaged dove’
are like a leitmotif, meant to stress a particular characteristic.
At the end of the description, the author turns to a darker comparison “mortal beauty”, just like in his
poem, She weeps over Rahoon, when the tone is dark and sad, in accordance with the feelings experienced by
the one who has lost her lover to death. In She weeps over Rahoon, the leitmotifs that appear throughout the
poem are rain, “softly falling”, and the lover’s voice, ‘sadly calling’.
Joyce’s literary style is ever changing. Sometimes, he uses the stream of consciousness, backshifting,
time disruptions, and other times, he can be gentle and sweet, like a real poet. His style is overall unpredictable,
sometimes sweet and tender like a waltz, and other times fast and bold, like a tango. The portrait of the artist as
a young man is a complete novel, in that it approaches big themes like religion, love and art, and it contains a
wide range of human feelings, from revolt against political order, to obeying rules and to adhering to art codes.
His style is original, and exactly like he had intended, he managed to keep the literary critique busy for years
and years to go.

Bibliography

1. The portrait of the artist as a young man, online full text- http://www.online-
literature.com/james_joyce/portrait_artist_young_man/
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Portrait_of_the_Artist_as_a_Young_Man
3. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/portraitartist/
4. She weeps over Rahoon, online full text http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/she-weeps-over-
rahoon/
5. About epiphanies http://theliterarylink.com/joyce.html