Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Chapter 22--He's Blind for a Reason, You Know
Discuss the use of blindness in the novel. 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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In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce subtly portrays blindness with his main character Stephen. Stephen is blinded by sexual desire when he encounters a Dublin prostitute. Such metaphorical blindness prevents him from realizing the sins he was about to commit. “He was in another world: he had awakened from a slumber of centuries.” (88) After the encounter, Stephen realizes what he has done. “He would follow a devious course up and down the streets, circling always nearer and nearer in a tremor of fear and joy, until his feet led him suddenly round a dark corner.” (89) Stephen continued to visit prostitutes every night. At this point, he no longer cares that he is sinning. The sexual desire has overcome his conscience and will not allow him to feel bad about his actions. Finally, at a spiritual retreat, Stephen realizes what he is doing and actually wants to change. Father Arnall lectures of Heaven and Hell, and ultimately death. His speech makes Stephen feel as though he is just speaking to him. This scares Stephen and causes him to become a devout Catholic. This is when Stephen is now no longer blinded and helps him on his journey to discovering who he is.
ReplyDeleteAs HRLP explains, the geography of a story has a greater importance than merely being the setting. As both pin2wincj and Jad Nnazy point out, Ireland and the importance of the Roman Catholic religion create the ideal setting for Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, because of what being an Irishmen in the nineteenth century meant to Stephen Dedalus and the other characters. In the beginning of the novel, Stephen defines himself by his geography and not merely his name, writing “Stephen Dedalus/ Class of Elements/ Clongowes Wood College/ Sallins/ County Killdare/ Ireland/ Europe/ The World/ The Universe” (Joyce 27). Even at a young age Stephen understood he was only a member of larger communities. After moving away from the country into Dublin, leaving his home and Clongowes behind, Stephen began to loose this sense of community, turning away from traditional Irish practice for the excitement of sin. Eventually, the Catholic Church forces Stephen to recognize his sins. In order to atone, the wayward boy reaches back into his childhood, regaining his sense of tradition through simple actions such as “kneeling like a child saying his evening prayers” (Joyce 143). Stephen regained his ‘geography’ only to realize he is not a true Irishman. Unlike his friends, he has no desire to learn his native language and others repeatedly call him a heretic for his beliefs. Stephen refuses to put his desire to become a poet after Irish nationalism and the Roman Catholic religion, therefore as Stephen’s friend Cranly says “It might be difficult for you to live here now” (Joyce 246). Since Stephen is unable to conform to traditional Irish practice, he does not fit in the molds of the Irish society, and must therefore remove himself from Ireland (the setting).
ReplyDeleteSorry for the above post, I accidentally miss posted it.
ReplyDeleteBefore Stephen Dedalus learns of the attraction of sin and becomes blinded by his misdeeds, he first must overcome the child’s ignorance that clouds his vision throughout the beginning of Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Throughout his time at Clongowes Wood College, Joyce constantly describes the school as dark and dreary with “pale sunlight” (Joyce 32) illuminating a majority of the scenes because Stephen views the world through the narrow and dim perspective of a child. To further impair Stephen’s young eyesight at the college, Joyce allows Stephen to accidentally break his glasses, making the boy all but literally blind. As a result of the incident, Father Arnall, Stephen’s teacher, “said [he is] not to study till they [Stephen’s new glasses] come” (66). Despite being pardoned by his teacher, Father Dolan, the prefect who administers punishment, “pandies” Stephen for not completing his assignment and playing tricks on Father Arnall. The pupil endures the lashes while believing the punishment “was unjust and cruel and unfair” (63). For the first time in Stephen’s young life, he realizes an action as being unfair and decides to act upon this new knowledge by addressing the rector. The rector ensures the incident was a misunderstanding and promises the persistent boy Father Dolan will no longer punish him. By having Stephen confront the rector, Joyce forces Stephen out of the innocence of childhood, because he, like an adult, took responsibility, overcame his fears, and addressed the issue.
As Anynomous mentioned in the post above about Stephen being punished wrongly for a crime he did not commit, blindness appears more than once within the entire incident. Post the punishment, Stephen is urged on by his peers to report to the rector about the “stinking mean low trick” (Joyce 46) of prefect of study. Throughout dinner Stephen is indecisive about reporting to the rector about his injustice. He fears that the rector would “side with the prefect of studies and think it was a schoolboy trick” (48), placing the prefect against him, creating the possibility of further pandying. In the end, without looking back, Stephen heads to the rector’s room. Walking down the “dark and silent” hall with his eyes “weak and tired with tears so he could not see,” he mopes his way to the room, asking for direction from an old servant. Literally blinded by tears, Stephen is metaphorically blinded by his fears and insecurities that were caused by the injustice that he was served by the cruel world. Blinded by the crack at his innocence, he requires help to find the rector, whom he should believe would serve justice. In his exit of the rector’s room, after defending his case and given justice for being wrongly accused, Stephen has no problem finding his way out of the same dark and silent hall. In fact he gains the ability to run toward his peers being no longer blinded by his fears and frustration.
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