The Nets Worn Inward: Alienation as Method in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Abstract

James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is usually read as a novel of growth, freedom and artistic awakening. Yet Stephen Dedalus does not grow simply or peacefully. He is formed by quarrels at home, strict religious schooling, sexual guilt, political bitterness and unease with the language in which he must think and write. This article argues that Stephen's movement from alienation towards artistic selfhood is the central drama of the novel, and that Joyce leaves it deliberately unfinished. Alienation in Portrait is both wound and resource. It cuts Stephen off from family, church, nation and human warmth, yet it also sharpens his perception and drives him towards art. Reading the novel alongside recent work on Joyce's composition, religion, language, form, gender and nation, the article shows that Stephen never escapes the nets he names. He learns instead to work inside them. Family decline, Jesuit discipline, colonial language and inward unrest are not obstacles he clears on the way to art; they are the material from which his style is made. On this reading the ending offers no finished identity. Stephen leaves Ireland with a voice still in formation, and the closing diary marks work begun rather than completed. The article also holds Stephen to account. The detachment that makes him an artist is the same detachment that makes him a difficult son, a distant friend and a poor reader of the women around him. Joyce grants him his vocation without granting him innocence.