Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Chapter 18--If She Comes Up, It's Baptism
Identify a "baptism scene" in the novel. Explain how the character was 1. Prepared for life change, 2. How the baptism occurred, and 3. How the character was changed afterwards. Do not repeat a comment already made on this thread. However, you may respond to and/or extend another student’s comment. In your post, be sure to include specific quotes from the text, with page numbers, to support your conclusions.
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Stephen was baptized during chapter three of Joyce's novel. After attending the retreat, he felt as if his "soul was festering in sin" (81). He begins to fear his future and hell as he views himself as a "beast" (79), which makes Stephen want to repent his sins. It is raining outside when Stephen hears the sermon and decides that he must repent. He knows that he must change his lifestyle and realizes he has the time to make this change for the best. Going through the water, rain, and puddles, acted like a form of Baptism and repent. He removed his sins along with Original Sin. After this form of Baptism, he temporarily changed his ways, praying feverishly. His moral and religious state also undergo a major permanent transformation. Stephen changes and dedicates his life to the service of God by constructing his life around prayer instead of frequently visiting brothels and opposing Gods words.
ReplyDeleteChapter 18 – If She Comes Up, It’s Baptism
ReplyDeleteOther than representing baptism, submersion in water “may just signify birth, a new start, largely stripped of spiritual significance” (Foster 159) in a literary work. In other words, the situation where characters undergo a complete submersion in water (or some other liquid substance) does not mean the author implies symbolic baptism; instead, the scene could symbolize a fresh perspective on a new life path. Stephen, the protagonist in James Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” experiences such baptism when his fellow classmate “shouldered him into the square ditch” (Joyce 12) where “a fellow had once seen a big rat plop into the” (12) cold and slimy water. Stephen’s refusal of Wells request to swop his hacking chestnut for Stephen’s snuffbox prepares Stephen for life change because the next day Wells tantalizes Stephen with rude remarks which distracts Stephen from evading his plunge into the filthy water. Stephen’s immersion in the scum symbolizes the initiation of Stephen’s sinful actions. The dirty and revolting water taints Stephen’s angelic record; his sinful and guilt stricken journey begins, which only brings Stephen’s spirit closer to hell. Even though Stephen’s devotion to God is apparent after his submersion, the slimy water covering his body presents its literary purpose when Joyce writes, “He was angry with himself for being young and the prey of restless foolish impulses, angry also with the change of fortune which was reshaping the world around him into a vision of squalor and insincerity” (58). Stephen’s view of his young life changes, he wishes to be a wise and mature adult.
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. 159. 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. 12-58. Print.
Chapter 18- If She Comes Up, It’s Baptism
ReplyDeleteStephen Dedalus undergoes several remarkable transitions throughout his life as described in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Like Sunflower11 writes, the first transformation happens when he changes from a timid, innocent school boy, to a more confident, assertive student. Then next change occurs when he transforms into a lustful sinner after his family moves to Dublin. The next transformation, according to Pin2wincj happens when he suddenly becomes a devout Catholic, and devotes himself wholly to the Virgin Mary and the Church. The final stage of his development, however, where he is finally baptized into his destined adult life does not occur until he is called to speak with the director one day. The director asks if Stephen ever felt that he “had a vocation” and wished to join the priesthood (Joyce 137). Although the fanatically Catholic Stephen would have immediately accepted such an opportunity, he hesitates and finally denies the offer. This first rejection of his faith shows that Stephen was prepared to undertake a new stage in his life. By denying a position in the church, he proves that he is ready for baptism. Later that day he sees friends swimming. They beckon for him to join, and suddenly his body “was purified in a breath and delivered of incertitude and made radiant,” baptized in the river (Joyce 148).
As Stephen Dedalus grows older, he still has to memory of being pushed into the dirty cesspool. This memory is brought up again when Stephen imagines what Hell is like. “An evil smell, faint and foul as the light, curled upwards sluggishly out of the canisters and from the stale crusted dung.” (120) By thinking of this, Stephen becomes physically ill from the despair. Stephen vomits “profusely in agony” (120), but this function ultimately cleanses him. When Stephen is feeling better he overlooks the land in a more positive fashion.
ReplyDelete“When the fit had spent itself he waked weakly to the window, and lifting the sash, sat in a corner of the embrasure and leaned his elbow upon the sill. The rain had drawn off; and amid the moving vapours from point of light the city was spinning about herself a soft cocoon of yellowish haze. Heaven was still and faintly luminous and the air sweet to breathe, as in a thicket drenched with showers: and amid peace and shimmering lights and quiet fragrances he made a covenant with his heart.” (121)
Stephen proceeds to pray and then weeps. This cleanses Stephen and encourages him to go to the church and repent his sins. Like being baptized, he is starting fresh.
There baptism scene in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man but the one that stands out the most happens when he is near the sea looking “northward towards Hath”(pg 149). In the events leading up to his “baptism”, Stephen is asked by the director of the school if he ever had a calling to be a priest. Though Stephen often had thought of it, he still pondered if that would be the proper lifestyle for him. When Stephen first enters the area near the sea he feels as if his “soul had arisen from the grave of boyhood “(149), though the baptism hasn’t been sealed with water. There is an irony in this too, because he is being baptized to be a normal person and not accept his vocation calling. Once he entered the sea, the baptism takes place in which he sees a girl, and his then “her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy”(150). Thus he finally accept his decision to deny the calling of the priesthood. Once he emerges from this “baptism” he finally accepts his true calling that will follow him into adulthood. Stephen is no longer as religious as he once was, thus a baptism took place and Stephen finally understands who he is a person.
ReplyDeleteJoyce includes several minor baptisms throughout his novel, The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which seem to conclude at Stephen Schreier’s example, when Stephen Dedalus goes to the sea with “a new wild life…singing in his veins” (Joyce 175). However, hidden in the last chapter of the novel is Stephen’s final baptism, his final new start. According to Foster in HRLP, a literary baptism only requires water, but James Joyce, in his chapter five baptism decides to include John the Baptist as well. Throughout, the final chapter, Stephen consistently accompanies his friend Cranly, and during a “fine rain” (217) in March the pair can be found together. In Cranly, Stephen has found a friend he can “confess to” (248), while Cranly offers a listening ear and steady advice. With Cranly’s assistance, Stephen realizes “it might be difficult…to live here [in Ireland] now” (246) because he no longer believes in the Roman Catholic church and puts his passion for poetry before his patriotism. As the final days of Stephen’s Irish life draw to a close, he writes in his journal about Cranly and how he was born from “the exhausted loins” (249) of his parents resembling how Elisabeth and Zachary bore John the Baptist late in their life times as well. By comparing Cranly to John the Baptist, Joyce adds significance to the final new life of the aspiring poet, Stephen Dedalus.
ReplyDeleteIn HTRLAP, Foster explains how when a character changes drastically in a novel it is considered baptism. The protagonist of James Joyce’s “A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man” undergoes a baptism midway through the novel. Stephen goes from being a sinner, committing sins of lying, envoy vanity, impurity and many others to being a new pure person after undergoing confession once. Stephen was consumed by his guilt of his sins especially the one of impurity at such a young age. He felt ashamed and knew he needed to do something about how he was leading his life. When Stephen entered the confessional and revealed all of his sins to the priest his baptism occurred. All of his sins “trickled from his lips, one by one in shameful drops” (Joyce, 126). Although Stephen was ashamed of these sins he felt like a new person once he revealed all of them. After Stephen confessed all of his sin his baptism was complete. As he said his penance “his prayers ascended to heaven from his purified heart like perfume streaming upwards from a heart of white rose” (Joyce, 126). Stephen felt relieved that he was pure again and that God forgave him for all of his wrongdoing.
ReplyDeleteTruthfully, Joyce uses Stephen’s rebirth to demonstrate two distinctly different lifestyles, both of which Stephen scornfully rejects. Brought up in a devout Catholic family, Stephen’s moral conscious is tested throughout his teenager year. Over the course of time, although Stephen fails to demonstrate the difference between right and wrong, he is always aware that he acts in violation of the church's rules. For example, at first, he falls into the extreme of sin, repeatedly sleeping with prostitutes and deliberately neglecting his moral ethics. More specifically, this is evident when Joyce regards Stephen’s "soul as festering in sin" (81). However, Stephen must change when “he begins to fear his future and hell as he views himself as a "beast" (79). As a result, Father Arnall's speech prompts him to return to Catholicism. Eventually, however, Stephen realizes that both of these lifestyles—the completely sinful and the completely devout—are extremes that have been false and harmful to his personal growth. Unsurprising to the reader, Stephen does not want to lead a completely debauched life, but also rejects the Catholic Church because he feels that it does not permit him the full experience of being human. Therefore, Joyce allows Stephen’s transition between two destructive lifestyles to serve as a baptism or a rebirth of his character, which consequently presents another moral dilemma.
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