A Priest of the Portrait as a Young Man: The Path to Stephen Dedalus’s Artistic Baptism Adam Cottrel It is a fine thing to establish one’s own religion in one’s heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing. —D.H. Lawrence
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Between the bookends of “Once upon a time” and “Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead” the reader of James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man has witnessed the transformation of Stephen Dedalus from boy to man, oppression to liberation. Stephen, modeled after Joyce himself, is a sensitive, thoughtful person who is raised in an Irish Catholic family during the early part of the 20th century. Stephen’s story starts at childhood and weaves through adolescence, and into early adulthood. Joyce creates this story on the basis of four distinct transformations. These transformations create stepping-stones from naïve child, to bright student, to rebellious teenager, to ardent Catholic, and eventually to an independent individual that holds art as his mantra for life. This eventual climax is caused by two extreme, yet equally unhealthy, stages of Catholic rejection and Catholic acceptance. Stephen’s journey to find happiness and purpose lead him to a variety of places, people, and mindsets that only create despair and hardship. Only when Stephen stands on his own two feet, independent of outside doctrine, is he able to find happiness. Stephen finds strength in his own personal beliefs in art and this is what gives him the strength to seek that which he most desires. After an arduous self-struggle, art turns into Stephen’s new religion and in art he becomes a priest-like figure, spreading the gospel of artistic expression with the aim of finding life purposeful. The reader first encounters Stephen in the playful opening lines that capture the innocent perceptions of a young boy. Joyce writes, “Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named tuckoo” (3).1 Joyce masterfully arranges these first lines to coincide with the thought process of a child. One can plainly see the simplicity of the language, which is reinforced by the child-like vocabulary of “moocows,” “nicens,” and Joyce’s own childhood nickname “baby tuckoo” (Gifford 131). Joyce has taken great effort to fashion the novel in this manner, with the style imitating the level of awareness Stephen has gained. Joyce’s stylistic approach helps to determine the first major transformation of the novel. Stephen, enrolled at Clongowes Wood College, is a promising young student who is struggling to study. Instead, Stephen meditates, “God was God’s name just as his name was Stephen. Dieu was the French for God and that was God’s name too; and when anyone prayed to God and said Dieu then God knew at once that it was a French person that was praying” (Joyce 12). The language and motif of such lines are ones best described as childish. These are lines that leave the reader curiously questioning the paradigm of childhood logic,
