Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Chapter 13--It's All Political
Assume that Foster is right and "it is all political." Use his criteria to show that the novel is primarily political. Do not repeat a comment already made on this thread. However, you may respond to and/or extend another student’s comment. Cite any research you use in the correct MLA format. In your post, be sure to include specific quotes from the text, with page numbers, to support your conclusions.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Chapter 13 – It’s All Political
ReplyDeleteShow that novel is primarily political
According to Thomas C. Foster, “political” writing “engages the realities of its world – that thinks about human problems, including those in the social and political realm, that addresses the rights of persons and the wrongs of those in power,”(110) and can be both interesting and compelling. James Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” contains the components of “political” writing. First, the novel exploits the wrongs of those in power with the setting, late 1880’s Ireland, when Ireland’s political leader, Parnell divided the country with the publicity of his adulterous relationship. In the novel, Dante reacts to Parnell’s scandal by using her scissors to rip “the green velvet back off the brush that was for Parnell,” (Joyce 14) and telling Stephen “that Parnell was a bad man” (14). Stephen does not know much about politics, so “he felt small and weak” (14). He wonders, “When would he be like the fellows in poetry and rhetoric” (14) who know much more about the adult world than he does. Second, Joyce includes a scene where Mr. Casey, Dante, and Stephen’s parents discuss politics and religion. Mr. Casey thinks the priest is “turning the house of God into a pollingbooth” (26). Dante takes offense to Mr. Casey’s comment because she thinks the church “must direct their flocks” (26) and tell them what is right and what is wrong. Mr. Casey remarks, “Let them leave politics alone...or the people may leave their church alone” (27). Mr. Casey and Dante’s argument deepens politics’ importance to the story’s plot because Christmas is a time for celebration and reunion, not for political arguments with separation as the result. By creating such focus on politics at Christmas time, Joyce manages to enforce the role politics plays in the plot thus creating attention to the subject as the reader progresses through the novel.
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. 110. 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. 14-27. Print.
Chapter 13- It’s All Political
ReplyDeleteAs Sunflower11 described in the previous comment, James Joyce’s novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, heavily discusses political topics important to Ireland during the late nineteenth century; topics that “[engaged] the realities” of Joyce’s world (Foster 110). However, for Joyce to accurately depict the life of a boy growing up in this timeframe, avoiding the politics of his surroundings would have been nearly impossible and have certainly taken away from the authenticity of his work. What makes A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man so political, isn’t the unbiased facts that are scattered throughout the work, or the heated arguments of Parnell’s act of adultery at Stephen’s “first Christmas dinner” (Joyce 26). Instead, Joyce’s opinions, as expressed through Stephen’s seemingly random stream of consciousness, demonstrate the political stance of the novel. While at Clongowes Wood College, Stephen absentmindedly considers the War of the Roses, in which the White Rose of York fought the Red Rose of Lancaster. Instead of focusing on his math sums like the other students, he instead contemplates the possibility of “a green rose” (Joyce 10). If the Red and White Roses signify Britain, then the Green Rose would be a symbol of Ireland and Irish independence. Another example of an anti-British mood in A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man, is Mr. Casey’s comment that he had hurt his hand “making a birthday present for Queen Victoria” (Joyce 24). He actually refers to his imprisonment in an English Labor Camp. By demonstrating an act of British cruelty against a friend of Stephen’s, Joyce suggests that Ireland would be better as a separate state. This concept neatly mirrors Stephen’s own story, which is one of independence and escape from the traditional pressures of his church, family and society. Details like these, set in the backdrop of Irish social and religious turmoil, make the novel so political.
James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is primarily political due to its high favoritism of the Irish Nationalist Party. The most prevalent of the political scenes is the Christmas dinner at the Dedalus household. The first piece of evidence as Jad Nnazy had said before was how “Mr. Casey had told him that he had got those three cramped fingers making a present for Queen Victoria”(24). This is favoritism towards the Irish Nationalist Party due to the fact that it brings a sense that the British government oppressed and tortured the Irish people. Thus it supported the Nationalist party because the party ran on the platform to banish the British from mainland Ireland. The other political discussion taking place at the Christmas dinner was the political power that the church should hold in Ireland. In this discussion Joyce skillfully persuades the reader to believe that the church should not have governmental control in Ireland. This is supported by Dante first saying that “the bishops and priests of Ireland have spoken”(27) then Mr. Casey said “Let them leave politics alone”(27). Joyce is biased against the church because Dante appears throughout the dinner as a prude, while Mr. Casey appears as a likable person, who is more relatable too. Overall Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is primarily political work.
ReplyDeleteJoyce’s, The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, like the other bloggers have mentioned, contains a political undertone. In the beginning of the novel, Joyce presents the book’s main political issue through the guise of Dante and the “two brushes in her press” (Joyce 20), one of which represents Parnell. In the nineteenth century, Parnell became one of the most prevalent politicians for Irish Nationalism, but when his affair with a married woman, Kitty O’Shea, became public, the strength of Ireland’s Catholic religion overruled Parnell. As a result, he lost the candidacy because so many Irish nationalists doubled as devout, chaste Roman Catholics. Throughout the beginning of Portrait, politics and Parnell are constantly referred to, for instance during Stephen’s first Christmas Dinner, but the main parallel appears later in the novel. While Stephen never becomes a prevalent Irish Nationalist, he remains offended that others “sold [Parnell] to the enemy or failed him in need or reviled him and left him for another” (206) just because of a religious controversy. In this way, Joyce creates a connection between Parnell and Stephen. Therefore, when Stephen too is forced away from Ireland because he does not conform to the Irish tradition and religion, the action does not come as a surprise to the reader. By incorporating politics and comparing Stephen to Parnell, Joyce reveals the political reasons as to why Stephen Dedalus no longer belongs to the small island community.
ReplyDeleteWhile many aspects of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man seem quite literally political, the large majority of Joyce's major political musings reveal themselves much more subtly. From the first mention of politics, it becomes immediately evident Stephen possesses no tangible information concerning what politics actually mean, all he knows is "Dante was on one side, and his father and Mr. Casey were on the other side" (Joyce 14). These allegiances present themselves a mere ten pages later, as Dante shouts "honour to" (29) the clergymen of Ireland involving themselves in political affairs, while Mr. Dedalus instead rejects them, deeming them "sons of bitches...rats in a sewer [and] lowlived dogs" (29) for condemning Parnell. On the surface this event merely informs the reader of background political information, but developmentally it affects Stephen profoundly as he "'remember[s] all this when he grows up'" (29). These two opposite views clash with one another, and for brief stints Stephen experiences living under the ideologies of both feuding parties, Parnell's immoral and sinful ways, and Dante's purist and pious ways. Eventually however, Joyce rests his protagonist at peace midway between these two extremes, and allows Stephen to find peace within himself as an artist. In this regard, religious piety seems to directly symbolize corresponding conservative and liberal political ideologies. Thus, Joyce approaches politics just not on a literal level, but also a subtle symbolic level, stating the answer to politics lies midway between the spectrum of extremes.
ReplyDelete