Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Chapter 11 --...More Than It's Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence
Identify an example of violence in the novel. Analyze it according to Foster’s comments on the different types of violence and the effect of each. Do not use an example of violence already discussed on this thread unless you offer a significantly different interpretation. In your post, be sure to include specific quotes from the text, with page numbers, to support your conclusions.
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In the first chapter of his “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” Joyce portrays the effect of violence toward his protagonist through repetition. The prefect of studies, the one in charge of punishment, calls Stephen out to the middle of the classroom because Stephen refrains from completing his work. In his defense, Stephen says his glasses were broken but the prefect calls him a “lazy little schemer” (Joyce 44) and refuses to believe his story. After the “hot burning stinging tingling blow” (Joyce 44) strikes him, he feels “shame and agony and fear” (Joyce 44) unlike any he has felt in his life. It is here that the repetition begins. In reference to his punishment, he states it was “unfair and cruel” at least five times in the next page and a half. Although the actual violence does not really affect him because the physical pain wears off in a few minutes, he cannot ignore the mental scarring he receives. Through the repetition, Joyce shows just how unfairly and cruelly the prefect of studies acted. Stephen’s classmates even convince him to report the prefect’s actions to the rector in order to gain retribution. Once Stephen “suffers time after time in memory the same humiliation” (Joyce 46) as he replays the violence in his mind, he decides to listen to his classmates and tells the rector. The rector then agrees to talk to the prefect about the situation and resolve the conflict. After his talk with the rector, Stephen walks back onto the field a hero as his peers “make a cradle of their locked hands and hoist him up among them and carry him along” (Joyce 51). Thus, Stephen’s ego is restored and he feels “happy and free” (Joyce 51) once again. By presenting the violence with the prefect of studies as not only a physical pain but also a mental torment through his repetition, Joyce simultaneously portrays the size of Stephen’s ego.
ReplyDeleteChapter 11 – ...More Than It’s Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence
ReplyDeleteThere are two kinds “of violence in literature: the specific injury...and the narrative violence” (Foster 89). Stephen Dedalus experiences both types of violence when his glasses break. In the novel’s beginning, the author places Stephen on the cinderpath where a biker runs into him breaking his glasses into three pieces. Stephen’s impaired vision restricts his classroom abilities. Even though Father Arnall exempts Stephen from his work, Father Dolan considers Stephen a “lazy little schemer” (Joyce 44). As a result, Father Dolan punishes Stephen by striking his hands with a pandybat. Stephen’s wrongful punishment “was unfair and cruel; because the doctor had told him not to read without glasses” (45). Stephen follows the rules and listens to his doctor and teacher, but instead of receiving praise and acknowledgment for his good behavior Stephen experiences violence. Father Dolan’s punishment towards students who misbehave is meant to correct the students’ mistake or wrongdoing, however, Stephen never misbehaves and Father Dolan humiliates and hurts him both physically and mentally. Overall, the specific injury Joyce causes Stephen to encounter is impaired vision and the narrative violence is the pain and suffering Stephen endures from his “unjust and cruel and unfair” (46) punishment.
Works Cited:
Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature like a Professor: a Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading between the Lines. New York: Harper, 2008. 89. Print.
Joyce, James, John Paul. Riquelme, Hans Walter Gabler, and Walter Hettche. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. 44-46. Print.
In Chapter 11 of HTRLAP, Foster explains acts of violence in literature. Violence can often allude to another piece of literature based upon what type of violence it is. Intentional violence includes beatings, hit and runs and shootings, often times alluding to Christ figures. Accidental violence can include anything that is accidental or out of the control of the characters. Ina Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, Stephen encounters violence repeatedly throughout his time at school. One such event takes place when three boys decide to punish Stephen for having his own opinion on the subject of the best writers in certain fields. Stephen is caught by two of the boys and is subjected to being hit by a cane and the stump of a cabbage. He is hit in his legs, arms and sides repeatedly. Throughout the beating her is told to admit that” a writer was “no good“ (Joyce 72). As Stephen remembers this encounter with the three boys he wonders ”why he bore no malice now to those who had tormented him” (Joyce 72). The act of violence was intentional and is an allusion to Christ. Stephen was held by his arms, pinned against his will to endure a beating that blow after painful blo, much like Christ when he was crucified. Also Christ felt no malice for those who tormented him, just as Stephen feels none for his own tormentors.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter one, Stephen is pushed into a puddle of sewage by other boys. As a result Stephen becomes very sick from the incident. Although boys admitted “it was a mean thing to do, to shoulder him into the square ditch”, Stephen is constantly tormented by other students (Joyce 18). Relating to Foster’s take on the two types of violence, the incident does apply to Foster’s first analysis, saying sometimes violence is simply violence between two characters. However, he also mentions how sometimes authors intentionally include violence “plot advancement and thematic development” (Foster 90). In this case, instances of Stephen’s bullying such as being pushed into the “square ditch” are used to develop the readers understanding of the magnitude of Stephen’s torment as a young boy. Furthermore, as Stephen is lying in bed sick, Irish patriot Parnell dies. Because of this, it is possible that Stephen’s health or well-being could be a symbol for that of Ireland as a country itself. If this correlation is true, all of the injuries or accidents could symbolize all of political events that occurred in Ireland during Joyce’s childhood, seeing how the novel is semi-autobiographical. Using injuries and violence to represent political unrest could be Joyce’s way of voicing his opinion instead of using a direct, open writing of his ideas. Joyce might have done this because of an influence from his family. Joyce may be describing his own families values when his mother constantly begs everyone to not discuss politics and religion at the dinner table. Due to possible influence from his mother, Joyce may use injuries to Stephen to correspond with political events he is not in favor in. Any ideas???
ReplyDeleteIn How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster describes “narrative” or “authorial” violence, where suffering is brought upon the characters in the interest of furthering the storyline. James Joyce in How to Read Literature Like a Professor uses a kind of mental torture on Stephen that works just as well as any physical torture to force Stephen into a fierce character shift. After deliberately and repeatedly performing mortal sins by engaging with several prostitutes, Stephen attends a church retreat, during which he receives a rather influential lecture on the delicacy of the human character, the consequences of sin, and the suffering of the soul in eternal hell. The lecture induces nightmares about “the hell reserved for his sins: stinking, bestial, malignant, a hell of lecherous goatish fiends” (Joyce 120). Stephen’s immoral and even hypocritical nature gave him visions of “the bounding fire” sent by God to punish sinners, such as “the blood seeth[ing] and boil[ing] in the veins, the brains… boiling in the skull, [and] the heart in the breast glowing and bursting” (Joyce 106).These visions of pain and demons were so realistic in Stephen’s mind as to cause him to be physically ill when he awoke, “almost fainting with illness” (Joyce 120). This eventually drives Stephen to repent in order to “save [his] immortal soul” from eternal damnation (Joyce 96). Joyce’s authorial violence brings about a dramatic shift in Stephen’s character, beginning a new cycle in his life as attempts to find himself growing up.
ReplyDeleteAs with all other integral and memorable scenes within a novel, violent scenes never exist for the sake of creating unnecessary drama, but rather almost always exposes some sort of thematic depth to the novel. For instance, Joyce describes the violence between Stephen and his rival Heron not merely to accentuate the strange relationship between the boys, but also to elucidate some of Joyce's own opinions as well. Stephen grows to have a passion for reading and writing, and as a result his knowledge of those topic surpasses that of Heron and "his two attendants...Boland the dunce and Nash the idler" (Joyce 70). However when Stephen claims the prose of a writer who "was a heretic and immoral too" (71), insisting he understands more about the topic than the other three, yet they react by "cutting at Stephen's legs" (71) and his tormentors push him "back against a barbed wire fence" (72), attempting to force him to revise his original statement. While the scene clearly shows tension between Stephen and Heron, it also allows the reader to glimpse into Joyce's mind. The tormentors represent the Church, because of their condemnation of the heretic and his supporter. In Joyce's mind, the Church attacks those who speak against them, regardless of the legitimate knowledge they may have. With that understanding, Stephen's opinions on a writer come to represent a large quantity of topics shunned by the Church, namely science. Thus Joyce continues to intertwine political issues delicately into his work without stirring controversy, while at the same time showing his readers his true disposition, all with one seemingly random act of violence.
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