In the comments box post any questions, observations, and comments still lingering after the student-lead discussions (Wednesday, October 22 and Friday, October 24). You are evaluated during these discussions and may feel that your contributions during class did not adequately convey your understanding of the novel. If so, post comments.
Over the weekend I'll get the notes up from Friday's discussion. In both classes, the best A Portrait discussion sessions yet. Interesting to me how deep, specific, and serious both discussions were, yet how different. By reading the notes when I post them you'll have access to both threads of conversation.
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8 comments:
Michael McGovern
I just had something quick to say on chapter 3. I think that Joyce uses this chapter as a way to further Stephen's artistic mind. In this chapter, he is confronted with the horrors of hell. He is told of everlasting fire and constant torment. Due to the sins he has commited, he feels scared and uneasy due to his guilt. That thought in itself is not artistic, but Stephen then goes over the top in how he feels about his sins. He starts to feel as if he is on fire and being burned by the everlasting fire of hell. "Flames burst forth from his skull like a corolla, shrieking like voices: Hell! Hell! Hell! Hell! Hell!" (p.109) Immediatly after Stephen's episode, a group of students are heard talking about how they did not take the presentation seriously, and were not at all affected by hell. They even talk about going bikeriding after the retreat. This constrast shows how artistic Stephen really is. His guilt manifested itself in an extreamly imaginative way, quite unlike his classmates.
On pages 101 and 102 there is a passage which I think is very important to the meaning of this chapter and the book as a whole. Stephen passes Emma and feels immediately ashamed of “the sordid details of his orgies.” His state of mind reflected in Joyce’s racing and distressing prose: “Mad! Mad! Was it possible he had done these things? …The foul memories condensed within his brain.”
After his emotional distress subsides he imagines himself with Emma in a “wide land.” They are joined by “her whose beauty is not like earthly beauty, dangerous to look upon, but like the morning star which is its emblem, bright and musical:” the Virgin Mary. She forgives both Stephen and Mary for their sins and blesses their love.
A “dull scarlet light” filters into the chapel as Stephen is imagining this. This seems to be a symbol of God’s forgiveness or divine inspiration.
Stephen’s fantasy illuminates a part of his real psychology that is not often seen in this chapter. Stephen wants a love that is holy: one that satisfies both his desires and the standards of his community. He wants neither to sink into depravity nor to deny his inner self and devote himself to the church. However, as long as his desires conflict with his morals he cannot find a middle ground: he alternates between either extreme. But the mentality he really wants and the only one he can successfully maintain for any extended period is one that consolidates both his primal nature and his logical morality.
The end of Alex R’s comment strikes me as a topic that was quite obvious to me in the transition between 3 and 4. It seems that Stephen has a true epiphany, and the ‘dull scarlet light’ that Alex refers makes me instantly think of what we always think happens when an epiphany happens, the clouds part, the choirs of angels sing and god’s message is clear.
Soon after his ‘epiphany’ Stephen puts principle into action and starts living a saintly life. It’s then interesting to see what this freedom brings Stephen. He said he’s now free, but in that, he begins what he calls ‘mortifying’ his senses. He would bring himself to pain, and restriction in the name of religion. But it’s interesting to link to the fact that, for Stephen, Religion is freedom. It was a cycle that I found particularly interesting to ponder, where Religion is freedom, as much as it is restriction and pain. This can be interpreted in a few ways, possibly a comment by the author on religion, or, if not, a foreshadowing of Stephen’s future break and resentment for religion (because of the cycle mentioned above.)
Kyle Smith
My first impression of chapter three was rather negative in that I felt that the countless pages used by Joyce his sermon on hell went to excess and did little to contribute to Stephen’s development as an artist. However, I was more focused on how the fear that was incited by the sermon in chapter three contributed to Stephen’s increased faith in chapter four. This increased faith that was manifested by his need to mortify his senses led him into his deeper seclusion. His increased faith and his redevotion to the Virgin Mary brings him to the attention of the director of his school. This makes Stephen seriously consider the priesthood as a method of escaping sin. Both seclusion and his potential future as a priest are key in shaping him as an artist. This seclusion is also manifested in chapter five where he yet again feels unable to relate to his fellow students. In chapter four it is due to his devotion to religion but in chapter five it is because of his artistic callings. It seems that his self-inflicted isolation from his peers is a driving force behind his realization that he wishes to be a man of the arts instead of a man of faith.
Alison Randazza
D Block
Penguin Classics
I remember talking about how at the end of chapter three, it seemed as though Stephen was not himself. And I thought that his personality after he confesses and before he confesses was interesting enough to compare.
At the end of chapter three, after he has confessed, Stephen is relieved of his sins when he confesses to his sins. Stephen surrenders for the second time in the novel, at the end of this chapter, to God. Though the fact that he surrenders is not the main point of the passage, it is his reaction to his surrender. At the end of every chapter Stephen goes through a great change and in this passage Stephen takes a step toward a religious life. In this passage Stephen has indeed found “another life,” through which he can view the world. The life present to him is brighter and happier, “full of grace and virtue.”
That new life offers Stephen the opportunity to feel blessed to “hold upon his tongue the host and [have] God enter his purified body.” Through this life he would no longer fear the “greasy” plates and would instead rejoice in the blessing of a meal. This is much unlike how he felt earlier before he confessed; where he was disgusted with himself for having eaten his mean with an eager that should only be reserved when taking in God through communion. Before, Stephen was tormented by the thoughts that he had “sunk to the state of a beast that licks his chaps after meat,” Stephen is offered an escape with his confession. Through this life he would no longer fear the “greasy” plates and would instead rejoice in the blessing of a meal. At this point in the novel he reader is to understand that Stephen will now choose a religious path not an artistic one because of his confession revelation.
beginning of chapter 3
"The dull light...cold darkness filled chaos"
This passage is a simple, short paragraph, but includes many motifs and good imagery. I'm actually not even sure where Stephen is at this point, which is just another reminder that the language is what's important here, not the plot. (Der, Lucy)
"the dull light fell more faintly upon the page whereon another equation begain to unfold itself slowly and to spread abroad its widening tail."
the widening tail refers to the peacock's widening tail in the previous paragraph. This is the bird imagery we see sprinkled throughout.
the equation is "his own soul going forth to experience, unfolding itself sin by sin [prostitute by prostitute], spreading abroad the balefire of its burning stars and folding back upon itself, fading slowly, quenching its own lights and fires. (the soul is quenching its 'lights and fires', its desires, perhaps, with bodily pleasures. I think bodily because in the next paragraph it proclaims a "dark peace" between body and soul". He is sinning, but in doing so, both body and soul are...)...quenched: and the cold darkness filled chaos."
But what is the chaos? Obviously it's just a start here. But Dedalus is making a connection between his body and soul, obviously somehting he struggles with throughout the novel. It's a beginning.
In class I mentioned that I thought the spiritual pains of Hell the priest talks about are particularly important and probably more important than the pure physical descriptions of pain. Each of these three pains has specific relevance in Stephen’s own life. This relevance, I think, is the greatest factor in his decision to follow a strict Christian lifestyle.
The first, the pain of loss relates to Stephen’s desire for some kind of control over his own life and his relationships with other people. Stephen is constantly frustrated in his attempts to develop some kind of direct emotional connection with others. He often tries to control others in order to create those connections. The scene I’m really thinking of right now is the scene in which he uses money to try to win the love of his family and comes “not one step nearer the lives he had sought to approach nor bridged the restless shame and rancor that had divided him from mother and brother and sister.” When he starts seeing the prostitutes he actually does have some form of control and is able to use his money to create the connections he desires.
The second, the pain of conscience relates to the constant inner conflict Stephen feels between his morals and desires. Stephen is experiencing this conflict quite strongly throughout the priest’s sermon. I don’t know that a specific quote is needed here but…: “could it be that he, Stephen Dedalus, had done those things? His conscience sighed in answer. Yes, he had done them, secretly, filthily, time after time and, hardened in sinful impenitence, he had dared to wear the mask of holiness before the tabernacle itself while his soul within was a living mass of corruption.” In a world as strictly religious and moral as his it is almost impossible to escape this conscience.
The pain of extension relates to Stephen’s real spirituality. Although he errs from his religious upbringing, he still, in the end, approaches life with a sort of natural spirituality. This is a very transcendentalist spirituality that approaches human nature as holy. This is reflected in the scene at the end of Chapter 4 when Stephen sees the girl wading in the water and his soul cries “Heavenly God!” When he ignores his morality he loses an intrinsic part of his nature.
The pain of intensity relates to Stephen’s fear of becoming consumed by his sins. He becomes somewhat addicted and risks losing control of himself and his complete, multi-faceted identity. “…he brooded upon his longing, the swamp of spiritual and bodily sloth in which his whole being had sunk.”
By giving himself over to religion Stephen utilizes an easy way out of these spiritual pains that affect him in his real life. He can have a form of control in his self-control and conscious choosing of his environment; he can evade his conscience by succumbing to it entirely; he can satisfy his intrinsic need for spirituality; and he can escape from his addiction to vice that threatens to destroy him. These spiritual pains have an effect on him and create for him a real sort of “hell on earth” that is described at length in this chapter. Of course, the turn to religion is not a permanent solution but it does temporarily alleviate these pains.
Kyle:
I agree that chapter 3 contributed to Stephen's development as a follower of religion, but I disagree with what you said about Joyce's emphasis and prolonging of the priest's sermon about hell. I think one of the major aspects of Stephen's character that makes him an artist is the constant reeling of his mind. The things that are most prominent in his brain are the things that reoccur, obsess, and evolve. Joyce's drawn out, repetitive style in this chapter parallels Stephen's state of mind at that point in his life. Joyce's style varies throughout the novel to adhere to Stephen's varying mindsets. I think Joyce made it difficult to read and difficult to be excited by about on purpose.
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