Preview

Literary devices used in "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
871 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Literary devices used in "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"
Joyce has used the name Daedalus as a literary vehicle to give the reader a sense of deeper understanding about Stephen as a character in "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ". There is a link between Stephen Dedalus and the Greek mythological figure Daedalus and this becomes apparent to Stephen when he hears his friends say his name in Greek. When Stephen compares himself to the "fabulous artificer" their similar plight reveals itself. The correlation between Stephen's need to escape Ireland to write, parallels Daedalus's escape through flight from Crete.

Through the correlation between Stephen and Icarus, Joyce was referencing the overconfidence and pride that both Stephen and Icarus had. It is apparent that Stephen is proud yet pretentious especially when conversing with his friends who he feels he has outgrown mentally. Icarus fell to his death because of his overconfidence and pride. This demonstrates Stephen's willingness to take risks to realize his destiny even if it includes failures.

Stephen compares himself to Lucifer in chapter four saying, "The snares of the world were its ways of sin. He would fall. He had not fallen yet but he would fall silently and in an instant." Lucifer fell from heaven because of his pride saying, "I will not serve". Stephen also full of pride in himself refuses to honor or serve his family, church and his country. This defiance in Stephen demonstrates his strong will to do what he wants with his life.

Joyce has used birds as a literary device in "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" to develop themes and evoke a visual image for the reader. Birds are usually associated with freedom and flight, yet the earliest mention of birds is related to punishment. Dante's threat that eagles would pick out his eyes essentially comes true in a symbolic sense. Stephen becomes blinded by mortal sin with prostitutes and was then blinded by a life of total devotion to religion.

Heron, Stephens boyhood adversary has bird-like

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Bird image repeated in simile ‘birds of passage’: impermanence of existence, no settling down, unaware of what direction and time they will take…

    • 546 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The symbolic nature of bird could be considered to be highly contrasting when comparing Geraldine Brooks’s ‘Year Of Wonders’ and Arthur Miller's ‘The Crucible’. In ‘Year of wonders’ Brook’s uses bird imagery, in particular “birdsong” in order to create a pleasant (Pheasant.. HA!) and light hearted tone often symbolising hope such as in the case of praying towards an almighty father. The birdsong acting as a way in which the people find the holy spirit, which is often represented by a white dove in Christian theology, even in the plague ridden times they find themselves trapped in. Contrastingly Miller uses Bird to symbolise the truth, or lack of.…

    • 190 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Daedalus tackles with the idea of home through the course of Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man as well as in Ulysses. He detested home while he still lived there, craving to escape his dull and restrictive everyday life but now finds himself haunted with thoughts of his dead mother and his inability to perform actions that she expected of him. An insistent theme that we encounter as Deadlus’ character grows is the usurping of home. While Odysseus is away from Ithaca in The Odyssey, his household is usurped by would-be suitors of his wife, Penelope. This motif translates directly to Ulysses and provides a connection between Stephen and Bloom. Deadlus pays rent for the Martello tower, where…

    • 609 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    At the start of the novel, Alan Paton introduces Stephen Kumalo, a native priest in the small village of Ndotsheni. The reader soon learns that he is the protagonist of the novel. He is a modest and good man, and has a deep reverence for the old customs, and he hates no one, even the white men who have oppressed his people. But as the novel progresses, he becomes more sensitive to racial injustice. When Stephen returns to Nodotsheni towards the end of the novel, things begin to change and improve for his people. Stephen is somewhat responsible indirectly for this change. His relationship with James Jarvis, and his conversations with the small white boy brought his town milk and better agriculture among other things. In the Bible, Stephen was chosen among six others to help restore a complaint towards a group of Jews, who neglected to give a daily distribution of food to their widows. "Now Stephen, a man full of God's grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people" (Acts 6-8). In both instances, Stephen was seen as a man full of spirit and wisdom. In addition, they both resolved a predicament among their…

    • 1118 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Symbols In The Glass Rose

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Throughout the entire story, Stephen’s perception of himself sways depending on who he interacts with. Stephen is notably smaller in comparison to the other men at the Pulp Woods. In the beginning, he perceives himself…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Conspiracy, unkindness, and death are a few words associated with one of the most popular birds in the world. The raven is commonly seen in works of art, literature, and movies to set the tone or scenario for things that are coming next. In Poe’s, “The Raven”, the ebony bird symbolizes grief upon the man who is trying to forget his recent lost love, Lenore. The raven represents loneliness, void, and demise from the moment he tapped on the window until the bird spoke for the last time.…

    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Awakening Symbols

    • 943 Words
    • 4 Pages

    ▪ Birds are a major symbol from the first sentence of the novel to the final image.…

    • 943 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The bird represent the joyful life Mrs. Wright wants and use to have, and for Mr. Wright it represents his cruelty and abuse. The bird sings and provides warmth and joy for Mrs. Wright. The bird is a sign of cheerfulness in a bleary home. Mrs Hale states, "He didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him--." She stopped, shivered a little. "Like a raw wind that gets to the bone." Mr. Wright strangles the bird, once again neglecting his wife, trapping his wife in a bleary place, and being cruel and abusive.…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Spies-Byr Frayn

    • 1097 Words
    • 5 Pages

    At first Frayn shows Stephen of finding it difficult that to believe that the adults that are around him were once children too. This is naïve of Stephen.…

    • 1097 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Birds in Macbeth

    • 701 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Birds that are not predators symbolize innocence, more specifically childhood. One could say that fowl are fair. Lady Macduff is aghast when she hears the news about her husband leaving Scotland. She tells her son that his father is dead, and asks what he will do. He replies he will live “as birds do, mother”(IV.ii.32). Lady Macduff then comments that he will not fear any kinds of traps, like an innocent bird unaware of its predators and trappers. Banquo and his son Fleance are on their way to Macbeth’s castle for a feast when a group of three murderers ambush the two. While Banquo tries to fend them off he exclaims, “Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly”(III, iii, 17). What he says obviously compares Fleance to a bird, telling him to fly and be free from violence, thus innocent. When Macduff hears about the news of Macbeth killing his “pretty chickens and their dam, At one fell swoop”(IV, iii, 224-225), he calls Macbeth a “hell-kite”(IV, iii, 223). These lines are very dense when it comes to the symbolism of birds in Macbeth. One line establishes birds as horrible things capable of…

    • 701 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    On one plane, Stephen’s labyrinth exists in his mind; the many confusing and contradictory thoughts and opinions Stephen holds are each winding paths that cause Stephen to feel lost. On another plane, Stephen’s labyrinth is a metaphor for his journey through life and time on earth; the many possibilities and choices of Stephen’s life are each paths that could lead to his freedom in union with God after death. With that in mind, Stephen maneuvers each labyrinth differently to ultimately engage with…

    • 1574 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In chapter three, Stephen experiences an alarming bout of agony during a sermon about Hell. Stephen explains how, “his flesh shrank together as if it felt the approach of the ravenous tongues of flames…”, and, “his brain was simmering and bubbling within the cracking tenement of the skull” (148). Stephen’s agony during the sermon and seemingly literal hellish suffering is a result of the guilt he feels for his material sins and sins of the flesh he perpetrated in chapter two. Stephen becomes convinced that he is going to hell. While agonizing about the fate of his eternal soul, Stephan receives a vision of Mary in which she says, “You have erred but you are always my children” (139). This serves as a turning point for Stephen. Up until this point, his life has been one of a slow descent into sin and depression. Despite all this, he believes that his faith in God and in the Virgin Mary can save him from eternity in Hell.…

    • 301 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    students that complained that the average classes were much too easy. The school hoped that by…

    • 1005 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    the glass rosesssss

    • 690 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Stephens father has a strict opinion of his son, he believes that his son is not a man and that he is weak. Stephen consistently tries to prove his father otherwise, his opinion of his son is stuck on the fact of him not having enough potential. He is a racist man, and disrespectful in many ways especially towards Leka. Although he has this feature, his father gradually sees an improvement that Stephen has. Stephen constantly does his job and begins to be a hard worker and his father soon starts to realize that. It is noticeable that his father says things to his son to only help him achieve his job, even though his father still has that strict, racist tone about Leka he only tries to protect his son as a nice gesture.…

    • 690 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Essay 4 Life Is A Journey

    • 2993 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Stephen’s earliest childhood memory is of a story that he was told by his father about a moocow and a little boy named baby tuckoo. He also remembered his mother having a nicer smell than his father. The memories from an early childhood are difficult to recall because a child does not have the experience yet to put them in perspective, but it seems that Stephen has loving and supporting parents. Their dedication to their son’s education is showing in this passage “The first day in the hall of the castle when she had said goodbye she had put up her veil double to her nose to kiss him: and her nose and eyes were red. But he had pretended not to see that she was going to cry. She was a nice mother but she was not so nice when she cried. And his father had given him two fiveshilling pieces for pocket money. And his father had told him if he wanted anything to write home to him and, whatever he did, never to peach on a fellow. Then at the door of the castle […] the car had driven off with his father and mother on it. They had cried from the car, waving their hands: -Good bye, Stephen, good-bye!” (Joyce, 3). Stephen did not appreciate the separation from his home at first but his parents made the decision to send him to a catholic school in his best interest, although they did not take…

    • 2993 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays

Related Topics