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    File: \DP\0109\01097.TXT         Fri May 05 00:08:48 1995
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$Title{Works of James Joyce
Chapter Four}
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$Author{Joyce, James}
$Affiliation{Professor Of English, Slippery Rock State College}
$Subject{stephen
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$Date{}
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Title:       Works of James Joyce
Book:        Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, A
Author:      Joyce, James
Critic:      Kopper, Edward A., Jr.
Affiliation: Professor Of English, Slippery Rock State College

Chapter Four

Mechanics Of Religion.

     Joyce describes Stephen's new state of grace in terms of mathematics.
The image of Stephen's ringing up indulgences on a great Heavenly cash
register has been widely noted by critics, but Stephen's brittle and
transitory sanctification is defined as well by several other references to
the sterile ethic which he has imposed upon his unwilling soul. In the
opening pages of the chapter, Stephen is deeply involved in the paraphernalia
of penances and indulgences and in a watered down version of medieval
allegory which consigns the logic of the Schoolmen to the narrow confines of
the catechism. At one point, Stephen's relationship with God is described as
a theorem.

     The opening paragraph of Chapter Four sets the tone for Stephen's
surface conversion; each holy item is formally assigned a separate day for
discussion and meditation. Stephen tries to align his soul with the choplogic
of the Church and spends hours brooding over distinctions among the Seven
Gifts of the Holy Ghost; and, although he cannot tell apart Wisdom,
Understanding, and Knowledge, he is convinced that the Seven Gifts will
cleanse him of the Seven Deadly Sins in his past. Equally fruitless are
Stephen's bewilderment over the religious significance of the number three and
his inane thumbing of the rosary beads.

     In Finnegans Wake, Joyce was to use such numbers to pen his eminently
humane document and was to compare the book's structure to a rosary; but such
pious externals have little permanent influence on Stephen's spiritual state.
The symmetry which Stephen perceives in the relationship of God to his
creation is simply unfulfilling: The universe becomes a vast requiem for the
hero, and he muses that his death will make little difference to God.

Confused Theology.

     Stephen's anxieties at the start of Chapter Four stem in part from his
overreaction to the confusing precepts of his masters. Stephen is unable to
see that one may feel nothing towards God or things religious and yet be in
the state of grace. Seen doctrinally, spiritual dryness is often God's test of
the soul; but Stephen, whether through artistic sensibility or through a touch
of neurosis, refuses to accept this incomplete state. Perhaps he has been
told by the clerics that illumination will come in this life, after he has
exercised the proper religious muscles.

     Stephen's continuing imperfections and his inability to experience
joy in prayer lead him into endless worries about the state of his soul. As
do many Catholic boys, he wonders whether his sins have truly been forgiven,
then, in a dreadful distortion of reason, concludes that God must have been
obliged to provide the grace needed to resist temptation. Again, he
pitifully relies upon the tired Church maxim that temptation is proof of the
soul's remaining pure.

Satire.

     Joyce gains aesthetic distance, ie., puts space between himself and
Stephen, by his slight parody of the protagonist. The satiric treatment here
of a youth who once shared traits of Joyce himself is somewhat cruel, but the
comic description of Stephen's foibles does permit a measure of objectivity.
Thus we are told that Stephen finds mortification of the sense of smell the
most difficult task of all, probably because he is used to bodily odors -
Joyce hated to wash - and we discover that Stephen persistently musters all of
his inventiveness to devise intricate ways of mortifying his sense of touch.
This sense, of course, he has offended by consorting with prostitutes.

Stephen's Sensitivity Again.

     Many of Stephen's problems in these pages stem from the artistic
sensibility which he has retained through the execrable retreat. His
imaginative view of reality consistently struggles with the theological
formalism that he is urged to adopt. As he attends a gloomy early Mass, he
sees himself as a catechumen, and the light of his imagination glimmers
through the dark of the catacomb as he listens to the mutter of the priest.
The prayers which he mechanically tries to recite on his beads fade into
disembodied essences. He is more enamoured of the mysterious Procession of
the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son than by the doctrinal absolute
that God has loved his soul for all eternity. He wonders what the Sin against
the Holy Ghost, the one unforgivable sin, might be; and it is appropriate
that during his illumination at the chapter's end the wading girl is described
as a dove.

     Stephen's imaginings about religion are epitomized in the word "swoon";
and his ecstasy partakes of that mingling of adoration and repressed passion
experienced by the narrator of "Araby." Stephen also shares this lad's
attachment to dog-eared tomes of theological arcana. His readings in St.
Alphonsus Liguori are exhilarating, both sexually and spiritually, though
he would never admit the presence of the former passion.

More Skulls And Crossblinds.

     Stephen's meeting with the Director is extremely rich in symbolic meaning
and has been explicated at length by several Joyceans. In a position of mock
Crucifixion, the priest leans on the crossblind, the term implying both that
the Director is blind to the true meaning of the Cross and that he may use
the Cross to blind Stephen to his real vocation. The noose which he ties
represents the seductive nature of the priesthood, which exalts by providing
the powers to consecrate bread and to forgive sin, but which debases the
individual by imposing a rigid order upon his spirit. The waning light, then,
objectifies Stephen's fading belief in formal religion.

Clongowes, Again.

     The scene looks back to the young Stephen's meeting with Conmee: Joyce
refers to the Director's skull, to Stephen's desultory examination of more
portraits, and to the omnipresent swish of a soutane. With the deliberately
stilted phrase, the "message of summons," Joyce foreshadows Stephen's real
summons by the bird-girl at the end of the chapter.

Les Jupes.

     The discussion of the Capuchins' billowing skirts, les jupes, serves
several purposes. It lightly hints at clerical transvestitism; it reveals
the Director's attempt to denigrate a rival religious order-witness Simon
Dedalus' early advocacy of the Jesuits over the Christian Brothers-; and it
provides the material for the Director's sly testing of Stephen.

     Stephen refuses to be drawn into revealing his true attitude towards
the insinuating Director's patronizing comments about the Dominican's habits.
Owing to his adopted mask of humble obedience, he ruminates to himself about
the sexual connotation of skirts. Sitting in the dark, the Director resembles
an interrogator loosed upon a shackled prisoner. Already, however, Stephen
is learning to use the weapons of silence, exile, and cunning. His cause
for emotion is profound, since his cleansing confession of the previous
chapter was heard by a Capuchin; yet he is able to hold his tongue.

Cessation Of Hostility.

     Stephen's attitude towards the clergy here is one of pity, not open
scorn. Both his maturity and his independence are seen in his tired thoughts
of wearying clerics who teach that Macaulay never committed a deliberate
mortal sin - obviously, all mortal sins are deliberate, requiring consent of
the will - and who prefer the pale writing of Louis Veuillot to the vibrant
products of Victor Hugo. For the time being, at least, Stephen has lost the
militancy that inspired him to fight for the cause of Byron over Tennyson.

The Temptation.

     Arnall had appealed to Stephen's sense of shame during the Retreat
Sermon; the Director appeals to his pride. The Director offers power of all
types, and one is reminded of the catechetical question asked of Irish
children during Joyce's time: "If you saw an angel and a priest walking
towards a church door, for which one would you open it first?"; and the
answer: "For the priest, for only he can consecrate the bread and wine into
the body and blood of Christ."

     Joyce delineates several reasons that priesthood might entice Stephen,
and Stephen's musings are remarkably self-revelatory. He reasons that
ordination would provide him with the ritual needed to escape from the life
of humble worshippers. On the altar, somewhat below the celebrant (who must
assume responsibility), Stephen can lose himself in a vague world of Latin
rubrics, divorced from the real world of pious believers. Decked out in
strange garments, Stephen will have his aloofness condoned sacramentally.
In addition, ordination will separate Stephen from sins, and he will even
return, with God's grace, uncontaminated from the confessional.

     Stephen's other motives are less profound: the priesthood will provide
a ritualistic antedote to his sloth, grant him the key to secret knowledge,
and permit him access to the whispered blemishes of women in the confessional.

Leaving The Church.

     Because the entire novel is a statement of why Stephen leaves behind
formal Catholicism, Joyce spends little time explaining his motivation
at this time. Significantly, though, for Stephen, deciding not to be a
priest is tantamount to resolving not to be a practicing Catholic.

     Although Stephen himself does not know exactly why he rejected the
Director's offer of Holy Orders, he does have some beginning insight into his
motives. First, Stephen superimposes upon his imagined future as a priest
his execrable past at Clongowes. Unlike other students, Stephen was able to
see through the comfortable facades of his bleary masters, and he does not
want such a life for himself. Also, he is repelled by the quasi-military
order- a pun which appears throughout the pages-of priestly organizations;
and, though he knows that ordination offers security, he would rather take his
chances in the real world of pitfalls and labyrinths.

     More subtle is Stephen's perception of himself as a fallen being; he
feels that he is not physically constituted to withstand temptation, and he
does not wish to waste his life's energy upon a losing war with the devil.

Home Again.

     Stephen's perception of his family's poverty and his sense of guilt over
being the member of the family who has been given all the advantages reinforce
his conviction that the world of the clergy is unreal. Momentarily, his
universe becomes furnished with the twisted statue of Mary amidst poor
cottages, the odor of rotted farm produce, a stranger who plunges a spade
into the earth, and a dishevelled but loving family, with its weak tea,
perpetual relocations, and sentimental lyrics from Thomas Moore.

     As he listens to the singing of his siblings, Stephen experiences a true
epiphany, perceiving in the melody of cold and hungry children the weariness
of all children from all time. He becomes one with Matthew Arnold in "Dover
Beach," with Faulkner's Dilsey and Benjy, and with Cardinal Newman, who finds
hope of rebirth in suffering. Blatty was to use Newman in a similar way in
The Exorcist, whose central theme is that, though the demons want us to see
only the dirt of human nature, there is much beauty behind the appearances.

Letting Go.

     Stephen, appropriately, paces between Byron's publichouse and Clontarf
Chapel before beginning his excursion. Byron has been a consistent symbol of
liberation from the start of A Portrait, and Clontarf Chapel suggests the dual
call of religion and nationalism. The Battle of Clontarf, in which the Irish
defeated the Danes, began on Good Friday in 1014. The fact that Clontarf means
the "field of the bull" blends with Stephen's appelation, "Bous
Stephanoumenos," "ox-wreathed."

     The start of Stephen's imaginative voyage shows him breaking away: he
perceives in his mother's skepticism about his decision to enter college the
divergence of views which will be expanded in Chapter Five; and he looks upon
his prospective entrance into the university as an adventure. The triple flame
which he imagines will not grace a Christian altar; rather, Stephen envisions
a humanistic, even pagan future at the Catholic college. His contemplation of
elves and lively, hidden woodland creatures suggests Pan more than Christ.
Buoyant in sense of an open future, Stephen can feel only pity and shame
for the "squad" of Christian Brothers who march across the symbolic bridge,
in the opposite direction. They apparently hear a different drummer.

Intoxication Of Words.

     Stephen knows what he does not want, a life of religion, but he has yet
to learn specifically what he does want from life. As he walks towards his
illumination, he experiences the ecstasy which comes from shuffling off the
coils of a past life. He has had his spiritual bad tooth extracted and is
still intoxicated by the ether: naturally, he is drunk on words.

     Stephen's movement is not towards the outside world; he has forgotten for
a time the call to duty heard in his family's singing of Moore's Melodies;
and, though he loves words for their rhythm and color, he sees them primarily
as means to express his own inner turmoils, methods to impose order upon his
individual chaos. Floating upon the waves of self-induced exhilaration,
Stephen feels both hope and despair. He sees Dublin as a bonded slave to many
conquerors, including the Danes, and looks for solace to the clouds drifting
to the west of Ireland: they have beheld the liberated expanses of Europe.

     He rejects, too, the world of nude, swimming youngsters, whose
boisterousness, he feels, cloaks their terror at their own bodies. Stephen is
not yet ready to plunge into life; and one is reminded of the first chapter of
Ulysses, in which Buck Mulligan dives into Dublin Bay while Stephen,
associating water with drowning, watches the sea from the beach.

Stephen's Analogues.

     Many critics have been bothered by the possible overwriting in the last
few pages of Chapter Four, calling the description of Stephen's enlightenment
Paterian and Shelleyan and arguing that there is no basis for Joyce's
comparison of Stephen to the Resurrected Christ. These same critics also sight
the sometimes confused Daedalian imagery in the novel, culminating in
Stephen's vision of the winged form ascending the air.

     From a negative viewpoint, Joyce seems to have projected upon Stephen's
flight from the Church his own paranoia; positively, however, he seems to have
expanded a small romantic part of himself, which remained unmitigated by the
cares of the real world, into the supple and deeply poetic delineation of
Stephen's change. The pages may be Paterian, but they certainly rival the best
of Pater. Again, though, the corrective of irony is not apparent upon a first
reading of the novel; and the pages, which at least border on sentimentality,
have been most popular with beginning students of Joyce.

Dedalus.

     Stephen's perception of Daedalus as the "fabulous artificer" suggests his
wish to pattern his artistic life upon his Greek namesake's ability to impose
order on vague myths. The fable of Daedalus will replace the mythos of
Catholicism in Stephen's future creative plans. Joyce himself structured his
work with stringent architectonics (or "artifices"), and, of course, in
Ulysses he used mythic materials. Once again, however, it is important to
distinguish between Joyce's artistic processes and Stephen's unformed
enthusiasm.

     Stephen's vision of Daedalus implies, too, his initiation into a priestly
rite that goes far beyond the Irish and their legends of victory over Danish
(or English) invaders. Stephen will seek access not to priestly secrets but to
the clandestine underpinnings of classical times. No longer will he look to
Rome, but, instead, will seek truths, albeit halftruths, from the oracles of
Delphi and the whispering reeds of Pan.

     Merging with the Daedalian image, Stephen no longer fears the once
threatening eagles. Like Shelley's skylark, he wishes to burst forth in song
but to do so from a height, soaring alone with one cry, above mere mortals.
Much of this romanticism, however, will be undercut by the prosaic, "deflated"
beginning of the next chapter.

Stephen's Resurrection.

     The Christocentric symbolism in the pages is harder to accept, especially
since Joyce confuses his allusions, having Stephen undergo his Transfiguration
and Resurrection on one page - and in reverse order. The latter is denoted by
allusions to "cerements," Christ's burial clothing, which was folded neatly by
the empty tomb on Easter Sunday. At this point, Stephen's "mission" differs
from that of the risen Christ: Stephen seeks solitude; Christ worked through
his disciples. For a while Stephen is enjoying the splendid isolation of his
pagan ordination; in the next chapter, he will gather together a band of mock
apostles.

A Lady In Wading.

     Several critics have pointed out that Stephen's vision of the bird-girl
represents his Baptism into a life of creativity. The Biblical parallel is
with the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan by John the Baptist. Then, the Holy
Ghost in the form of a dove appeared in the sky to signal God the Father's
approval of his Son's mission. Here, Joyce indicates the reference by
allusions to the dove; to ivory, which has been associated throughout the
novel with the Blessed Mother; and, of course, to the blue of the girl's
skirts-Mary's color. Also, the expression, "a sign upon the flesh," lends a
general Biblical tone to the passage.

     It seems, though, that other levels of symbolism in the section are just
as important as the somewhat confused Biblical analogies. Looking out to sea,
the girl is gazing towards the liberated territory of Europe, to which Stephen
will soon venture. But she is also a Siren, complete with a green trail of
seaweed, and Stephen must be wary of this mermaid, who may well bind him to
the little green place called Ireland-or perhaps upset his curragh should
he look back at her while he is journeying abroad. Stephen, then, is
Telemachus at the start of his trip, even as he is in the first chapter of
Ulysses. In A Portrait Stephen never does immerse himself in water, and the
novel ends with his preparation to cross over into Europe.

     The girl represents, too, the appeal of sensuality, which Stephen later
realizes that he must avoid if he is to devote himself fully to art. Unlike
the other females in the novel, for the most part mere symbolic figments that
hurry across Stephen's mind, this girl is fully fleshed. Stephen's profane
joy stems from his vision of her as both a living, "girlish" creature and as
a person who has the added allure of being beyond shame or wantonness. In a
sense, however, Stephen is projecting his newly found freedom onto a common
girl who is simply kicking the water about.

     As in his vision of Emma after the cathartic of Confession, Stephen feels
that with such a girl he could walk blamelessly through life. Joyce, though,
has added the element of sex to Stephen's adolescent craving for a guiltless
emotional attachment. The bird-girl is Emma, with sex appeal.

Turning Aside.

     It is significant that Stephen does not communicate with the girl,
except through his eyes (as Bloom will do with Gerty MacDowell in the
Nausicaa Episode of Ulysses); the girl simply acts as catalyst for his
dormant emotions. She has, however, provided him with a small insight into
what can be experienced through a Heavenly being, who combines religion and
the underlying sexual passions of Ireland's peasants.

     Running off, Stephen sleeps deeply, enthralled by a sense of personal
harmony with the universe - not the mechanical order of a theistic plan which
once made him feel that his death would go unnoticed. Stephen has experienced
a sense of things being "freely given" - to quote the Existentialists. In "The
Dead" Gabriel Conroy underwent a massive epiphany just before falling asleep
in the Gresham Hotel. The insight of the older Gabriel, though, was profound
pessimistic. Stephen, Joyce wishes us to believe, will go on to create life,
to consecrate the daily bread of experience into an imperishable essence.

     No matter that his emotions will not last or that there is really
little substance in his vision, Stephen's perception of the bird-girl is
nevertheless his high point in the novel.

     Joyce delineates Stephen's temporary mastery of his destiny by his
description of the new moon as an almost buried silver hoop. Stephen, for the
moment, has risen above this celestial body, whose presence up to now has
symbolized his earth-bound insecurity; and he has all but "buried" his
priestly chalice. Chapter Five will describe his attempts to complete the
process.

