In the comments box post any questions, observations, and comments still lingering after the teacher-lead discussion (Tuesday, October 28). 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.
D-block
Summary by Ali O: Stephen disciplines himself at the beginning & in the end allows himself to think about women again. Also, his family is once again moving
Lucy F: interested in the passage in which he is asked if he has a vocation for the priesthood. We looked closely at this passage.
We talked about the priest's comments about Victor Hugo: "had never written half so well when he had turned against the church as he had written when he was a catholic." & how Stephen reacts: "the tiny flame which the priest's allusion had kindled upon Stephen's cheek had sunk down again and his eyes were still fixed calmly on the colourless sky. But an unresting dout flew hither and thither before his mind."
I mentioned the quotation "the priest let the blindcord fall" (Barnes & Noble edition 136) but had meant to quote from 134: "as [the priest] spoke and smiled, slowly dangling and loooping the cord of the other blind..." & then mention all of this in association with the mainy uses of "grave" & "mirthless": "leaned his chin gravely..." "seeing in [the priest's face] a mirthless reflection of the sunken day..." "a mirthless mask" "the life of the college passed gravely over his consciousness. It was a grave and ordered and passionless life that awaited him..." & then another face "the face was eyeless and souravoured and devout, shot with pink tinges of suffocated anger. Was it not a mental spectre of the face of one of the jesuits..."
Look at all that Joyce is saying w/ repetition & imagery (& subtle or implied metaphor); one might even say that Joyce employs a macabre diction).
& Hannah pointed out (B&N 157) where Stephen plays with ivy and ivory. "What about ivory ivy?" She senses his interested in language & sees him, finally, as a poet, an artist.
Several times we alluded to but never delved into the final scene with the woman in the water.
I mentioned the concept of "epiphany". Somewhere in here we talked about the virgin-whore complex.
*
F-block
Summary by Jaclyn
* Stephen assigns himself devotional tasks (rosary) & disciplines himself (not moving in bed, not making eye contact w/ women). Devotion to the Virgin Mary. Thoughts about the Holy Trinity.
* Stephen is asked if he has thought about becoming a priest. ("Les jupes" makes him think of women--never far from his mind.)
* Family struggles (Jaclyn asserts: he seems to feel for his siblings--in their innocence.)
* Friends joke about his name in Greek. (Reader is reminded of Dedalus, etc.)
* Stephen has an epiphany while watching the girl washing.
Allie: provokes conversation about women, especially if Stephen considers/grasps women as independent agents w/ their own consciousness or if he sees them only in relation to himself (as pure, as beautiful, as sexual, etc.) & why might this be significant? Like D-block, we talked briefly about the virgin-whore complex.
Michael asked about the use of "-boro" by a sibiling. We talked about playing with language (& "secret" codes) in the novel and outside it.
Then I became to involved and stopped taking notes until...
* Isabel asked a question about church and state & speculated whether or not Stephen blamed the church for his family's financial difficulties.
* I said I thought he blamed his father.
* Courtland quoted from B&N 214: "[my father is] a medical student, an oarsman, a tenor, an amateur actor, a shouting politician, a small landlord, a small investor, a drinker, a good fellow, a storyteller, somebody's secretary, something in a distillery, a taxgatherer, a bankrupt and at present a praiser of his own past."
Allie read from page 146-147 where Stephen is thinking while seeing the bodies of his friends. Stephen reveals his ambivalence about the body. (This is a major thread in the book. Stephen's ideas about his body &/vs. his soul--& is also a major thread in Western Civ/Christianity.) Allie suggested that Stephen talk w/ Walt Whitman. (This thread is worth following up upon and tracing through the whole work.)
Typing this I remember when I stopped taking notes. I asked a leading question: what statement marks Satan's *fall* (falling falling falling!--Icarus & the Christian fall)? Ans.: "I will not serve" (B&N 103). Then page 145 "...the office he had refused....He had refused. Why?" & earlier on 141 "He would fall. He had not yet fallen but he would fall silently, in an instant...fall...falling, falling, but not yet fallen, still unfallen, but about to fall."
Naomi was right! He has not yet fallen--he has merely refused to become a priest--but he will fall & we see that in chapter five. (But is this "falling" is another kind of rising or flying: When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets" (180). By refusing the call he may be able to avoid the net of the priesthood & may fly. But does he fly like Dedalus (successful) or like Icarus (doomed).
We also talked about Stephen's discussion w/ the director (priest) about becoming a priest (having a vocation). Much of what we talked about was also discussed in D-block see the commentary above.
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18 comments:
I am interested in the topic Allie started in regard to the role that women play in Joyce's novel. We talked in class today briefly about this role and how it may alter throughout the novel, especially as Stephen matures. I believe that in the beginning of the novel, Stephen idolizes females, due to his curiosity. This is clearly represented when he suffers the inner conflict of whether or not he should "make a move" on E.C. in chapter 2. "His heart danced upon her movements like a cork upon a tide." (page 60). He went home and wrote a love poem for E.C.
Later on in chapter two, Stephen's view of women has altered from curiosity to objectifying them. When Stephen has sex with a prostitute at the end of this chapter, he speaks of her as if she is not a fellow human spirit. "He closed his eyes, surrendering himself to her, body and mind, conscious of nothing in the world bu the dark pressure of her softly parting lips." (pg 89). In this instance, the prostitute is merely a catalyst to his development as a character. Stephen now delves into a world of sin. At this point in his life, women are objects in which he gains sinful pleasure from (he now has sex with several other prostitutes).
After experiencing terrible guilt from his new lifestyle, Stephen wishes to repent his sins. He swears off women completely, unable to even look them in the eye. "His eyes shunned every encounter with the eyes of women." (pg 131). He even feels guilt when the director brought up "les jupes" because it rendered connotations of women in his mind.
Despite his apparent newfound celibacy, we can see that at the conclusion of chapter 4, Stephen is once again intrigued by the beauty of women. He is entranced as he watches an "angel" washing in the water. "Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ECSTASY." (pg 150). I believe that this is the moment when Stephen finds his own opinion regarding women (whereas he had previously either devulged in sin or sworn off women entirely). I think now he admires females for their beauty, part of his development as an artist.
I am sure we will talk more about this scene in the next discussion session, but I would also like to point out the metaphor between the girl and birds (a motif throughout the novel). I believe that this relates to Stephen admiring her so much because she is "free" (as the bird) and he wishes to "escape" as Dedalus had in Greek mythology (as you have brought up several times in class. . this is clearly pointed out later on in the novel). So to reiterate, the reason that Stephen is so infatuated with the girl is because she represents what he longs for.
i liked our discussion today, especially about all of the falling and the conept of priesthood and sacrifice and stephen's decisions. but i was hoping to discuss one of the motif's we've been following, about water, more specifically floods and tides, and how they relate to stephen's thoughts, his falling, and his "individuality", if you will.
on page 132(barnes and noble) as stephen is describing his newfound devotion and piety, he notes that he couldn't merge his life in the "common tide " like other people, and it was harder for him than the physical challenges he was putting himself throuugh, and that it was his "constant failure" at this that cause his soul to experience "spiritual dryness". it seems that stephen is acutely aware of his inability to act or react as other people do. his internal tide seems to be responding to a different gravitational pull than everyone else's, in such a way that he can see where he should be and where he is. but that's not to say he is upset by this.
being unique and having power is very appealing to stephen, as he later says in this passage that he had an "intense sense of power" knowing that he could choose his fate. he was not roped into the same constraints as everyone else, and in any second he could choose to "undo all that he had done."
stephen uses the metaphor of a "flood lsowly advancing towards his naked feet" where the waves are waiting for the chance to touch his toes, to grab him. the water imagery in this passage is very strong as the reader can visualize stephen playing with his soul so delicately. he says that every time he almost loses it, he suddenly found it very easy to remove himself, and felt "a new thrill of power and satisfaction," or pleasure at his own unyeilding devotion.
stephen proves in this passage that it is not only the preserving of his sould that he is interested in, but also power. he is obsessed with power, and loves thinking that he can count himself as different from other people. it is painful for him to be common and mindless. he even becomes nervous after awhile that his ability to avoid "falling" from his grace is being "filched from him little by little" as he continually "eluded the flood of temptation." he worries that he has "fallen unawares," like other people would, and again excercises his glorious Power to win back his consciousness.
his pride in his defiance is solidfied by his closing thoughts on tides, that temptations were proof that man has not fallen, even though "the devil rage[s] to make it fall". Stephen likes to imagine himself defying the devil, choosing when he is and is not being a filthy sinner or a pious angel. the power of choice is intoxicating to stephen.
Brian Hand
Im citing from a different edition.
I have been trying to follow references to Stephen's senses and what he does with them throughout the book so when I came upon the passage on page 162, the phrase "Each of his senses was brought under a rigorous discipline," jumped out at me. I think Joyce is saying that being a good Catholic means sacrificing the intended use of the senses. Specifically, Stephen attempts to "mortify" his vision by "glancing neither to right or left and never behind him" (163). I feel as though Joyce's stressing of the importance of senses lies in his belief that senses are tools that artists work off of. This specific sense metaphorically refers to the blinding nature of Christianity, as it is religion that has caused him to repress his senses. The part about Stephen not being able to look "behind him" could also be a reference to his inability to look to the past and/or challenge his reasons for his intense dedication to his religion. So when Stephen is attempting to "mortify" his senses, he is putting his "soul" in "a period of desolation," or stifling his own natural perceptions and feelings (164).
Also, Joyce seems to be subtly pointing out the restrictive nature of religion in his simple use of the word "crossblind" (166) If you separate it into "cross" (symbol of Christianity) and "blind" (not being able to see), it becomes clear that Joyce is hinting at the fact that Stephen is being blinded by Christianity and suffering from its stifling limitations.
B&N pgs. 134-141
When Stephen is meeting with the Director there is a lot of symbolism relating priests to darkness and unhappiness. The priest’s back is to the light when the scene begins and the narrator describes the waning of the summer day. The priest’s face is in shadow as the light emphasizes the outline of his face, Joyce repeats again that it is the waning daylight that outlines it. Stephen listens to the priest as he “…spoke gravely and cordially…” Cordially is an interesting word choice and it makes me think of the cord that the priest holds in the first moment of the scene: “…slowly dangling and looping the cord of the other blind…” In class Mr. Cook brought up that some people think of this cord as a cord to hang someone with. There is a lot of evidence to support this theory. From the first moment of the scene the priest is dangling and looping the cord, which puts in my mind a cord to hang someone with. The priest spoke gravely and cordially, gravely is another clue that relates death with the idea of the cord. Then on page 137 the cord is brought up again: “The priest let the blindcord fall to one side and, uniting his hands, leaned his chin gravely upon them, communing with himself.” The priest lets the cord fall right after he asks him if he has ever thought of becoming a priest and Stephen answers that he has sometimes thought of it. Again when mentioning the blindcord Joyce chooses to use the word gravely, which triggers the reader to think of death. The image of the dangling and looping cord that then falls is easily related to an image of a hanging.
When the priest mentions “les jupes” Stephen has a “tiny flame kindling upon his cheek.” As the priest becomes more assertive with the idea that Stephen should be a priest: “A flame began to flutter again on Stephen’s cheek…” There discussion here mainly revolves around the power of being a priest. This reflects what Sarah said about Stephen being obsessed with power. In this way the thought of becoming a priest is tempting. He thinks of the sins he would listen to “from the lips of women and girls”(139) Again Stephen focuses on women and is curious about what their sins are. He thinks that as a priest he would be completely free from sin. On page 139 in particular the word sin is repeated a lot. Stephen feels so burdened with sin at this point in the book that the thought of being sinless is very tempting. In the beginning of chapter 4 he was trying very hard to repent for all of his sins. On page 133: “It humiliated and shamed him to think that he would never be freed from it wholly, however holily he might live or whatever virtues or perfections he might attain.” Although Stephen goes through great measures of self-sacrifices he still knows that he will never be completely freed from his sins. Sarah spoke about the tide imagery in this section. There was a flood of temptation always at his feet that he had to fight in order not to give into. Stephen seems to think that if he becomes a priest he will lose this flood of temptation and thinks that he will have the power to overcome this struggle entirely. Then as Stephen is leaving the priest(139): “he raised his eyes to the priest's face and, seeing in it a mirthless reflection of the sunken day" he removed his hand. Stephen sees what it is to be a priest and realizes what that would mean for him. He imagines himself with “a mirthless mask of the sunken day.” Stephen thinks about his future as a priest: “…it was a grave and ordered and passionless life that awaited him.”(140) Then: “His name in that new life leaped into characters before his eyes…and undefined face or colour of a face.” Stephen focuses a lot on the senses. This fits with what Brian said about how a good Catholic should deny the senses. Showing that Stephen needs to create a new identity for himself in his development into an artist. In this scene he focuses a lot on the faces he sees and on what his eyes see. On page 134: “…waiting for the director to come in his eyes had wandered from one sober picture to another…” And as he is leaving the priest he hears joyous music and feels: “caress of mild evening air.” After contemplating the priest’s face and his face as a priest he thinks of other priest’s faces. Then on page 141: “He was destined to learn his own wisdom apart from others or to learn the wisdom of others himself wandering among the snares of the world.” He knew that he could no longer follow anyone else’s path for him, he had to instead create his own. On page 141 it also says: “He would fall. He had not yet fallen but he would fall silently, and in an instant.” In class Mr. Cook pointed out that although he is still loyal to God at this point his refusing to become a priest is the first step in his falling from God. He will fall as humanity fell because of Adam and Eve and as Lucifer fell from heaven. Stephen then “turned his eyes coldly” on a Virgin Mary statue (141). This shows that he is leaving the virgin whore complex that we discussed in class. This sets up the way he views the woman at the end of this chapter.
I wanted to add one thing to my post. I said that there would be a passionless life that awaited him as a priest. That can be connected to something Stephen says on page 130 in the very beginning of the chapter. “He had heard the names of the passions of love and hate pronounced solemnly…and had wondered why his soul was unable to harbour them for any time or to force his lips to utter their names with conviction.” Stephen is curious about passion and recognizes that as a priest he will never get to experience them fully.
B&N pgs. 147-151
Stephen finds his friends are swimming an, “He recognized their speech collectively before he distinguished their faces.” This contrasts to how he focused on the priests’ faces in the beginning of chapter 4 and also just prior to this scene. On page 145: “Their piety would be like their names, like their faces.” Stephen is unable to look at the priests’ faces, he is still unsure if refusing priesthood was the right decision and is ashamed. As Stephen looks at his friends swimming he thinks of how confused he is with his own body. (148) “But he, apart from them and in silence, remembered in what dread he stood of the mystery of his own body.” His friends refer to him as Dedalus and he thinks about the meaning of his name. (148) “Now, as never before, his strange name seemed to him a prophecy.” Stephen questions what the meaning of Dedalus truly is. He begins to relate himself to the mythology: “His heart trembled…and a wild spirit passed…as though he were soaring sunward….and his soul was in flight.”(148) As he is having this revelation: “His soul had arisen from the grave of boyhood…” Stephen had previously mentioned that “He was destined to learn his own wisdom apart from others…” (141) The thought of Dedalus gives him a model to create his own life. On page 149: “He would create proudly out of the freedom and power of his soul, as the great artificer whose name he bore, a living thing, new and soaring and beautiful, impalpable, imperishable." His new name has given him strength and confidence in himself. “…a new wild life was singing in his veins.” Stephen’s cheeks are aflame which parallels how he felt when the priest made him think of women and he got embarrassed. Now he begins to think about women again. I noticed that when referring to his soul a few times he has given it a female gender. “Where was the soul that had hung back from her destiny…” (150) Right before he sees the girl in the water: “He is alone…figures of children and girls and voices childish and girlish in the air.”(150)
When Stephen sees a girl now after he has a new outlook on life he is able to look at her as more of his equal and respect her. When he realizes that there is a girl standing in the water she is alone. This parallels the fact that he is also standing alone. Another parallel between Stephen and the girl: “A faint flame trembled on her cheek.”(150) There is a flame on Stephen’s cheek both when thinking of women while talking with the priest and just previously to this scene. Then as he is ready to leave her, “his cheeks are aflame.” Although the girl is exposing her legs he describes her very innocently. He says her legs are delicate and pure and her thighs are like ivory. This is similar as how he used to view women, such as when Eileen’s hands were pillars of ivory. Another thing that Alex points out is the bird imagery in this scene. “…magic had changed her into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird.”(150) Also, he describes the skirts around her waist as being “dovetailed behind her” and her bosom being soft as a dove’s. Previously on page 129 one symbol of the holy spirit Stephen used was of a dove. What she symbolizes now is as sacred as he once viewed the Holy Spirit. He also describes her hair as girlish and her face as beautiful. By seeing the beauty in women he is developing himself as an artist. As he looks at her he describes, “the worship of his eyes.” This suggests that he is transitioning from worshiping God to worshiping women and respecting them. She is able to look back without shame for a long while and he describes his joyous soul. He leaves her and is happy with his new discoveries about himself. “…singing wildly to the sea, crying to greet the advent of life that had cried to him.” He refers to the girl as an angel that had called to him. “Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy.”(150) This line shows the impact she made on him. After the realization that he can create his own standards for himself he also realized that he can think of women in a different way than he used to. The word choice of holy in that line shows how much he now idolizes women like he used to God and the Virgin Mary. He then talks about error and glory and fall and triumph. He wants to learn from his mistakes and believes that more good will come from trying and failing than attempting to be the perfect Catholic. On page 151 he refers to the earth that he sleeps on as a comforting woman. Overall his sense of women and their place completely changes. He is more aware of the goodness that comes from them. In the final passage the phrase “evening had fallen” repeats itself twice. Previously when talking to the priest the sky was waning and Stephen was still deciding what to do. Now he has decided to live like Dedalus and then evening is able to fall.
The end of chapter four reveals a development in Stephen's relationship with women. His experience with the girl wading in the water, whom Stephen finds bird-like, is a catalyst for Stephen's new view of women. Even just before he sees her, his thoughts isolate women and girls as being separate and significant. In a particularly euphonious sentence, the narrator mentions "the gayclad lightclad figures of children and girls and voices childish and girlish in the air"(150). The separation of the "girls" from the "children" shows that even to this point, Stephen compartmentalizes females in his mind, seeing them as a separate species because of the way he idealizes them while also not understanding them and his relationship with them. However, in the next sentence, Stephen witnesses the bird-like girl in the water and begins his transformation in his view of women.
Seeing the girl in the water is clearly a significant moment for Stephen, made explicit by his soul’s “outburst of profane joy” (150). I think that a significant detail in this passage is Stephen’s focus on the image of the girl, in contrast to his obsession with words throughout the novel so far. The text says directly, “Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy.” Here Stephen is focusing on the image of the girl, the beauty of the figure. But it is not just the girl’s beauty that attracts him. Recalling Stephen’s description of the girl as bird-like, it seems plausible that part of her attractiveness is her association with birds, flying and freedom, all things that are related to Stephen’s trapped feeling and his interest in birds that comes in the following chapter. However, there is definitely something more to the girl than just her association with birds. Stephen thought her “a wild angel” who had “appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory” (150). Perhaps this passage is an indication of Stephen’s development out of his virgin-whore complex, as the “angel” showed both “error and glory” simultaneously. The female becomes a image of hope instead of control and allows for more normal female relationships at the end of the novel.
In response to Mr. Cook's urge to delve deeper into the meaning of the last pages of chapter four and his "epiphany," I reread these pages closely noticed some interesting details that I would like to investigate further.
One of the themes that seems to be emerging is a new type of religion that focuses more on the earth than the heavens. First, the narrator describes the water in which Stephan is wading as "dark with endless drift and mirrored the high drifting clouds"(149). The connecton between the earth and sky is mentioned again two pages later as Stephen is laying on the sand: "He felt above him the vast indifferent dome and the calm processes of the heavenly bodies: and the earth beneath him, the earth that had borne him, had taken him to her breast"(151). The heavens being deemed "indifferent" foreshadows Stephen's move away from religion that is more explicitly revealed in the next chapter. AS Stephen develops into an artist, he is focusing more on earthly beauty, which would explain his newfound attachment to the physical earth as well as his epiphanic appreciation for the beautiful image of the wading girl in the water. I put more about the girl in another blog post.
I wanted to talk about the role women play in the novel, similar to what Alex discussed. We explored this in class and Allie talked a lot about they way Stephen sees women in relation to himself. We reviewed how Stephen feels cold toward the Virgin Mary during this chapter. Something occurred to me at this point. In the beginning of chapter 4, Stephen is obsessed with trying to discipline himself and avoid eye contact with women. This is the part where he also feels cold toward the Virgin Mary. This confuses me, because I feel like Stephen’s disciplines set forth for himself sort of parallel with acting the “right” way a Catholic would be expected to act, but yet he feels negatively toward the Virgin Mary. Stephen’s attempt at avoiding sexual thought through avoiding eye contact with women almost reminds me of honoring the Virgin Mary, but still Stephen feels cold toward her. In comparison, at earlier points in the novel, Stephen feels close to the Virgin Mary and drawn to her, yet he commits the sins that lead him to his own personal hellish distress. I’d be interested in discussing why Stephen feels cold toward the Virgin Mary at the point where he is trying hard to become a more disciplined person.
I marked a passage in chapter 4: page 161 in the white books, I think.
Stephen has consciously decided NOT to become a priest: “The Reverend Stephen Dedalus, S.J.” He seems obsessed in this passage (from “some instinct…” to “Foxy Campbell?”) with temperature, and how temperature defines how much feeling lies behind actions. “The chill and order of the life repell[s] him.” It is not good to be cold, as it means you lack your senses. Stephen sees colors and associates them with the “raw reddish glow he has so often seen on wintry mornings on the shaven gills of the priests.” In no way is there any desire, or admiration for the priests, as he follows up with a description of the priests being “eyeless” with “sourfavoured and devout” faces, “shot with pink tinges of suffocated anger.” To be a priest is to be without individual identity(eyeless), to be cold, and to suffocate passions, three things which Dedalus seems to lack a taste for, suggested from previous passages in the novel.
Senses are important to an artist, which is what Dedalus is on his way to becoming. He possesses an affinity for passions ignited by his senses. Even when denying his body all indulgences, he did so with great fervor. He is not to live a restricted lifestyle.
I think the issue with cold pertains to the senses as well. Cold is associated with death, and death means loss of senses. I think that, even if it is not the MAIN objective of the passage, Joyce never ceases to remind us of the importance of passion and senses to Stephen, whether it be subtly or not so subtly.
After an artist, for lack of a better term, becomes an artist, they can always be identified as such. Something will set them apart from others, regardless of their tool: whether it be words, paintings, drawings, music, or sculptures etc, being an artist is a large part of someones identity. To become a priest would be to cast away this part of Stephen's identity that he has already been granted. (I say granted because I think he is predisposed to art. Or maybe I just think of everything in terms of my college essay now...)
I kind of wanted to build on what Lucy was saying, especially about the way he represses his senses. I agree that even when he is trying to keep his sense of sight, of smell, or of touch at bay, he does it with great care, with great passion.
First: the beginning of chapter four is written very differently from the other chapters. At this point of the book, the narrator does not delve into the present. The tone is very rigid; much like Stephen’s new rigid lifestyle. I found this beginning of chapter four the easiest section of the book to read. Unlike other parts of the book, where I found it hard to tell if the narrator was describing a memory, the present action, or what Stephen was currently thinking, the beginning of chapter four is largely a description. There is no dialogue, as there is no current action.
Anyhow, what is interesting is even when the narrator describes how Stephen represses his senses to be a good Catholic, and even in the midst of a chapter that begins, stylistically, very structured, Joyce has Stephen think of his toils artistically. Like Lucy said, once an artist, always an artist, and even as he tries to repress his passions, the art is boiling underneath so to speak.
On page 139, the narrator describes Stephen’s rosaries: “[the rosaries] transformed themselves into coronals of flowers of such vague unearthly texture that they seemed to him as hueless and odourless as they were nameless.” Here, just paragraphs after the narrator starts relaying Stephen’s routine, he shows Stephen’s focus on sense in an artistic way. Stephen is trying to repress the beauty he can see in everyday objects, like the color and texture of a bead, and transform it until it is just an object of religion. This shows how Stephen feels that he must separate beauty from religion.
Also, though this doesn’t relate to how I think that quote shows he is thinking artistically… Many instances throughout the beginning chapters of the book Stephen is fascinated by sense, especially in the first chapter, and how one sense can relate to good or bad. For example, cold meant bad and warm good in chapter 1 (I think it was the bed wetting memory). The fact that the rosary beads, a huge symbol of Catholicism, are hueLESS and odorLESS, neither a bad sense or a good sense, means that Stephen is still struggling with where he fits in within the church.
Just another small thing, though not related to my previous post. I was reading again at other points where Stephen strays too close to thinking of the senses in the beginning of chapter four. “The attitude of rapture in sacred art, the raised and parted hands, the parted lips and eyes as of one about to swoon, became for him an image of the soul in prayer, humiliated and faint before her Creator.” I feel that Stephen is definitely, again, thinking of women in this passage. I wasn’t sure if what he was saying is that his image of a female changed into a sinner. Humiliated and faint before HER Creator? Why does he think of his soul as a female? Is this a common thing in Catholicism (I don’t think so, but then again, I’m not religious) or is this again playing with Stephen’s fascination with the female, her soul, and her sins? I think it’s the second. Mostly, I was just amused by my initial rereading of the line and Stephens vision of someone swooning. But I suppose now that amusement has changed to confusion, since I don’t understand the female soul part…
Kyle Smith
Upon discussing the implications of the phrase “blind cord” in class, I reread that passage in hopes of discerning some meaning and I noted that the priest “unit[ed] his hands,
leaned his chin gravely upon them” and that reminded me of the scene where Stephen confesses to the priest earlier in the novel and a noticed that in that scene the priest also “rested[ed] his forehead against his hand.” It seems interesting that whenever Stephen meets with a priest to discuss something of great importance, the priest touches there face, seemingly in exasperation or perhaps due to something else. I’m curious as to whether or not Stephens other encounters with priest have a similar motif. It seems that this could potentially hint at what Stephen may consider to be his constant inferiority in the eye’s of god. The fact that both priests touch there faces during matters of great consequence may also symbolize there reverence to God in such matters.
Michael McGovern
B&N
In response to Jaclyns’s post, I believe that Stephen feels cold toward the Virgin Mary when he is on the right moral path is because he realizes that he will never be a priest and because the Virgin Mary is a main part of Christianity, Stephen rejects her. At this point in the novel, Stephen has just come to the realization that he couldn’t be a priest because he would no longer be free. “Then he wondered at the vagueness of his wonder, at the remoteness of his own soul from what he had hitherto imagined her sanctuary…a definite and irrevocable act of his threatened toe end forever, in time and in eternity, his freedom.” (p.140-141) This shows that he feels trapped by Christianity and could never be happy living as a priest. He feels that he is destined to be “elusive of social or religious orders.” (p. 141) This in turn would make him feel quite distant from the Christian religion, which the Virgin Mary is an important part of. Stephen also feels as though he is ready to fall into sin by leaving the church. “And he felt the silent lapse of his soul, as it would be at some instant to come, falling, falling, but not yet fallen, still unfallen, but about to fall.” (p.141) The feeling of falling coupled with the trapped feeling he has of the church causes Stephen to feel coldly toward religion, and in turn the Virgin Mary due to her being intertwined with Christianity.
page 162
Stephen is often arrogant. He is insightful and intelligent, but sometimes lacks the brains to understand that others may have the potential to think in his terms. I think he is a bit too convinced that he is great. I think he has a powerful mind (given to him by Joyce of course), and possesses a great understanding of his surroundings, but gets a bit too carried away at times.
"His destiny was to be elusive of social or religious orders. The widson of the priests appeal did not touch him to the quick. He was destined to learn his own wisdom apart from others or to learn the wisdom of others himself wandering among the snares of the world."
It seems here like perhaps the wisdom that others have gained thourhg legitimate experience isn't qualified for him; as if it's not good enough.
I love Stephen and think highly of his spirit, but at times, when I remind myself who is actually narrating the novel, I doubt his confidence, perhaps? I'm not quite sure.
It was easy to just look at this brief passage and say "Oh Stephen is so independent and strong willed and great etc.", but I wasn't sold on the idea.
Which is why i think it is so important that the very next passage is the "falling" passage. (!)
Here the reader is told that Stephen WILL fall. He ISNT that much better than everyone, he is destined to meet an end. But WHO IS TELLING US THAT STEPHEN WILL FALL? Is it the narrator? Is it Joyce? Or is it Stephen? Does STEPHEN know he will fall? Or is this some secret between the narrator and the reader?
Mostly what I got from these paragraphs is to re-read, and to second guess.
On page 148 of the white book:
"Every part of his day, divided by what he regarded now as the duties of his station in life, circled about its own centre of spiritual energy. His life seemed to have drawn near to eternity; every thought, word and deed, every instance of consciousness could be made to revibrate radiantly in heaven: and at times his sense of such immediate repercussion was so lively that he seemed to feel his soul in devotion pressing like fingers the keyboard of a great cash register and to see the amount of his purchase start forth immediately in heaven, not as a number but as a frail column of incense or as a slender flower."
This stood out to me as one of the few times Joyce mentions technology, machinery. From the very start of Stephen's story religion is a mechanical aspect of his routine, but it is not until part four that it becomes a machine, in the sense that it becomes robotic. In this passage it's almost as if Stephen has accepted his contemplations as steps or milestones instead of epiphanies. Joyce indicates that Stephan views the compilation of his thoughts and actions as beautiful when he describes them as 'incense' or 'slender flowers.' This indicates to me a change in Stephen. Instead of questioning his mental and physical encounters he accepts them as necessary and gentle.
I think that Joyce purposely had the lady in the water follow the scene where Stephen and his friends are joking about the name Dedalus. We've talked a lot about Stephen going back and forth about his life style and what directions he's trying to go in. At the mention of Dedalus, we automatically make the connection to the Greek myth. This brought up a lot about Stephen trying to fly away, and break free as an artist. I feel that often times when Stephen makes progress in this, his success is hindered by his own temptations. Right after we are on the path to Stephen "flying away", Joyce introduces the lady in the water, where Stephen finally allows himself to look a woman in the eyes. I felt like maybe this was significant to Stephen's personality, in the sense that he is often tempted into his old ways after we start to think he is no longer being influenced by certain factors such as women.
Emily Castro
Many things about chapter four jumped out at me, but what burns most vividly in my mind is a passage on page 131 (B&N); Each of his senses was brought under a rigorous discipline.....his arms stiffly at his sides like a runner and never in his pockets or clasped behind him."
When Stephen decided to cleanse himself of his sins and fully immerse himself in Christianity/Catholicism, he brought many things "under a rigorous discipline." However, to rigorously discipline one's senses is to strictly limit one's ability to see, feel and interpret the world freely. I think Joyce intended for this passage to be symbolic of the repressive nature of Catholicism on unique aspects of the human mind and spirit. Also, I think that Joyce is trying to put an emphasis on how significant the five human senses are to an artist. Joyce writes of how Stephen disciplines his eyes, his ears, his nose, his taste and his touch. Seeing as these five senses are the human body's strongest method of recall, it seems nearly impossible that Stephen could function as an artist with suppressed senses. I think that within this passage Joyce discloses that Stephen cannot be an artist and still adhere to the Catholic ideals, he must pick one or the other, but not both.
After the mention of the senses, I noticed that Joyce carried this theme through out the rest of the chapter. On every page one or more of the following words (eyes, lips, ears, face) appear at least twice on almost every page in chapter four after the passage about the disciplining of the senses. I took a specific interest in the cheek motif, and in my observation I noticed that whenever a cheek is mentioned, a motif of fire/flames appears either just before or just after; "Which hid the tiny flame kindling upon his cheek." (135), A flame began to flutter on Stephen's cheek..."(137), ".. and a faint flame trembled on her cheek." (150). I'm not exactly sure what the flame is significant of and how it relates to the cheek, but I would be interested to hear speculation from others.....
Another connection I noticed involves lips. It seems that the narrator most often mentions lips, specifically parted lips, when referring to either a woman or a priest, which is ironic, because whereas a woman is symbolic of lust and sin, a priest is symbolic of faith and redemption.
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