Rejection and Isolation in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Essa

As throng Joyces A Portrait of the Artist as a Young gentlemans gentleman unfolds, the central theme of isolation and rejection becomes evident. From birth to adolescence, the protagonist of the story, Stephen Dedalus, responds to his experiences through and throughout spiritedness with actions of rejection and isolation. He rebels against his environment and isolates himself in schoolwork, family, religion and his art, successively. James Joyce uses Stephen Dedalus responses of isolation and rejection to deck the journey that the artist must take to achieve adulthood. Even as a young boy, Stephen experienced rejection and isolation at school. On the playground Stephen felt his body too small and weak amid the other players (Joyce 8). His schoolmates even poked fun at his name. In response to his rejection by the other boys Stephen makes a conscious conclusion to keep on the fringe of his line, out of sight of his prefect and the other boys. Stephen is later(p renominal) interpret as choosing the warm study hall rather than the playground with his friends alfresco (Joyce 10). His rejection at school leads him to isolate himself in his schoolwork, thus putting himself on a scholarly path that will give him the intellectual skills necessity for the artist within him to achieve adulthood. In his later years at school, Stephens isolates himself through his relationship to authority and conformity and his rebellion against it (Ryf 27). In the classroom Stephen is pandied (beaten with a cane) and accused of being a lazy little schemer by a Jesuit priest for not completing his homework due to his broken glasses (Joyce 50). In rebellion, Stephen reports the injustice to the rector only to later discover that the rector took th... ...g above the waves and slowly climbing the air? a prophecy of the end he had been born to serve and had been following through the mists of childhood and boyhood, a symbol of the artist forging a unexamp led in his workshop out of the sluggish matter of the earth a new soaring imperishable being (Joyce 169). Stephen breaks with his past to achieve adulthood and an open-ended artistic vision that allows him to connect to the world that he had rejected. Works Cited Joyce, James, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The Viking Press in the buff York, 1916. Ryf, Robert S., A New Approach to Joyce. University of California Press Berkeley, 1962. Works Consulted Connely, doubting Thomas E., Joyces Portrait Criticisms and Critiques. Meredith Publishing Company New York, 1962. Litz, A.. Walton, James Joyce. Twayne Publishers New York, 1966.