SOUTH PASADENA HIGH SCHOOL  D  THE ENGLISH SEMINARAP [NICHOLSON]


James Joyce
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Chapter 1
1. Analyze the name Stephen Daedalus (St. Stephen, the myth of Dedalus and Icarus)
2. Locate specific examples and explain the importance of the sensory contrasts (hot vs. cold, dark vs. light, 
the white rose vs. the red rose, green vs. red/maroon)
3. Talk about the correlation among words, sounds, and objects  (such, belt, gas and song, train noises, towers 
of ivory and gold, cricketbats: pock and pain).
4. Identify the correlation among books, noting especially the Bible, the songs,  and Richmal Magnall's 
questions.
5. Find examples and discuss the importance of the idea of the contemplation of words, especially kiss (15) 
and 'God' (16)
 Chapter 2
6. Discuss the section about Stephen and Simon in Cork. Talk about and come to a conclusion (or two) 
about Stephen's relationship with his father.  (Don't forget Ddalus, OK?) Decide to what extent you 
think Stephen is going through an "OEdipal struggle" and why you think so. Decide on some way to 
account for the intellectual aloofness, Stephen's and others', in much of this section.
7. Perform a close reading of the end of Chapter II. (p. 101) Discuss and come to some written conclusion 
about (1) what is going on, (2) what it might mean, and (3) your own reactions to this ending.
 Chapter 3
8. Discuss the "hell-fire" sermons in Chapter 3.
9. Read aloud the passage on p. 120. 
10. Discuss and come to some conclusion about the function of the chapter.  Decide what effect Joyce wants 
to produce in the reader and the techniques and devices he uses to accomplish that end.
11. Make a list of the issues and the conflicts in Stephen's mind at this point of the novel.
 
 Chapter 4
12. Discuss the issue of vocation.   Find the word's etymology.  The relate its literal meaning to its 
common meaning today and to its meaning to young Catholics.
13. Discuss the concept of non serviam and its relation to the meanings of vocation.
14. Discuss the parameters of choice in the novel, and in chapter 4 in particular.
15. Decide in what ways Joyce uses the chapel and the public house to set the parameters of choice.  Relate 
this discussion, if you will, to the references to the church and to the pub in The Dead.
16. Discuss the bird-girl on the beach.  (1) Look back at your notes on your discussion of Stephen's attitude 
toward women in part 2-III.  Then reread the passage about the bird-girl (169-173) and come to some 
conclusion(s) about the effect Joyce wants the passage to achieve on the reader's perception of Stephen.  
(2) Relate the bird-girl passage to Stephen's search for, or his discovery of a vocation.
 
 Chapter 5
17. Discuss the changes in Stephen through the novel.
What changes have taken place in his character?  in the way he lives his life?
How would you characterize Stephen's attitude toward women by the novel's end?  How would Joyce?  
How would Stephen?  Relate your answers here to  (a) Davin's story,   (b) the mention of the old sow 
that eats her farrow  (c) Dante,  (d) Emma, and (e) the bird-girl from the beach (and what, by the way, 
has become of her?)
Do you like Stephen in chapter 5?  Does Joyce want the reader to like Stephen?  What evidence does the 
novel offer for your answer?
Will Stephen become an artist?  a devil?  Why do you think as you do?
 
18. Discuss the controversy over "aesthetic distance" as it applies to The Portrait of the Artist.
How far removed from Stephen is Joyce?  Where does the narrator fit into that distance?  What evidence 
does the novel offer for your answer?
What are Stephen's views on "aesthetic distance"?  How do you know?
Relate your ideas about distance to Stephen's argument on the impersonality of the artist (p. 215).
What is Lynch's role in chapter 5, and how does his role relate to the question of distance, especially of 
distance among Joyce, his novel, and the reader?
 
19. Discuss Joyce's (Stephen's?) style in chapter 5.
How would you characterize the dialogue?  What adjectives would you use to describe it?
What does Joyce intend the effect(s) of the dialogue to be on a reader?  Why might he want to achieve 
that effect (or those effects) on a reader in this chapter?
What does Joyce intend the effect(s) of the final diary entries to be on a reader?  Why might he want to 
achieve that effect (or those effects) on a reader in this chapter?
 
20. What humor does this novel offer, especially in chapter 5?
 
21. Discuss the changes in the flying-creature motif through the novel.  Concentrate on the Daedalus-Icarus 
myth, Lucifer, the concept of non serviam, the sin of pride, and the three nets.
 



 

 


