Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Chapter 21--Marked for Greatness
Explain how a character in the novel was “marked for greatness (significance).” 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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Joyce combines Foster’s interpretations of flight and injury within his character Heron in order to draw attention to Heron. When Joyce first introduces Heron, he focuses on his “birdlike” qualities and says “Vincent Heron had a bird’s face as well as a bird’s name,” (Joyce 67) highlighting his symbolism of flight. According to Foster, authors write about birds symbolically in order to portray a sense of freedom. Heron tells Stephen he “can’t play the saint on me any more” (Joyce 68) because he knows of Stephen’s shortcomings. Under pressure while Heron tells him to admit his transgressions, “the confession came only from Stephen’s lips” (Joyce 68). After his confession, Stephen feels much better about his own life as “a film still veiled his eyes but they burned no longer” (Joyce 75). The film remains because he has not confessed his sins to the church, only to his friend. Only after confessing his sins to a priest can he truly be freed from the pangs of guilt. Joyce not only accomplishes freedom for Stephen through Heron, but also pushes a step further and portrays Heron with an injury of a hurt leg, drawing attention to him. According to Foster, heroes possess marks in order to show the “indicators of the damage life inflicts” (Foster 195) and such is the case with Heron. Not only does the injury make the reader pay attention to the scene with Heron, but also symbolizes that “life marks all who pass through it” (Foster 195). By combining symbolic birdlike qualities with an injury in order to draw attention to Heron, Joyce demonstrates Stephen’s first step in his character shift towards confessing his sins to a priest.
ReplyDeleteThomas C. Foster’s novel “How to Read Literature like a Professor” contains a chapter that depicts how characters in novels are marked for a reason, mostly for the identification that they are destined for greatness. In James Joyce’s novel “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” protagonist Stephen Dedalus is mark, separating him from the rest of the society in which he resides in. As opposed to a physical marking like a scar or a birthmark, Stephen’s mind is mark. Since the beginning when he was a child feeling “small and weak among the throng of players” (Joyce 6) who were brutally playing football with each other, Stephen was different. He did not contain the energy and the desire to run around and pass a ball. Already a misfit in his world, he continues to be different as in his later adolescence years. Stephen withdraws himself to becoming “a gloomy figure amid the guy cocked hates and sunbonnets,” (Joyce 60)again setting him to be different. He is marked by his difference in thinking, causing him to be a silent watcher of the world around him, unable to fit in. But because of this difference, a reader can identify him to be the one person that will rise up above the others. What seems to be weak in the beginning has a literary pattern of becoming the strongest in the end. Stephen holds true to his mark but achieving what other characters could not: break away from society and live life as an artist according to the heart.
ReplyDeleteThomas C. Foster’s novel “How to Read Literature like a Professor” explains how and why characters are marked for a specific reason. In James Joyce’s novel “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” protagonist, Stephen is truly a mark because of his insecurities, which are overwhelmingly evident in his views of women. More specifically, the novel is based upon Stephen’s struggle to stand up for his beliefs, including the feminist power he knows he possesses. Additionally, Stephen is fully consumed by his desire to be accepted and not rejected by woman. However, as Stephen becomes older, disappointment arises as he notices the way his mother chose to abandon him. Therefore, as previously mentioned, it is overwhelming obvious Stephen fears rejection. Unsurprisingly, during moments of darkness, and struggles, Stephen finds himself thinking of the comfort and the care of his mother. Once again, as previously mentioned, Stephen’s insecurities become evidently present as a result of his mothers rejection, which results in his quest for love in a prostitute, whom he knows would never reject him. Therefore, Stephen ultimately is searching for the mother figure in himself and all his sexual quests. Therefore, Stephen serves as a successful protagonist and significant character as he continuously advances the novel’s message.
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