In Portrait of the artist as a young man, Stephen evolves in many ways as he grows up. His mother represents the mold that he is breaking. I found her few appearances to be very telling of Stephen's character. Her first real involvement is at the dinner when the argument breaks out. She largely acts as the arbiter and tries to retain order. I believe this is one of the things Stephen internalizes and it definitely sets a precedence for he order-driven motives in the novel.
Later on, we get descriptions of how Mrs. Dedalus is the strict catholic that has hopes for Stephen to enter priest hood when she sends him to the boarding schools. We see this reinforced when she appears disappointed with his interest in college. This provides a perfect opportunity for Stephen to grow as a person beyond what his mother expects, expressing his individuality. By the time he refuses to go to church, he is far from the devoted boy from the beginning. Cranley points out how Stephen is now beyond acting under his mother's love, another symbol of independence. I think she is important, as both a static character and one of the only women exclusively portrayed realistically.
I do not envy Stephen's complete detachment from his mother, but I think it is a very significant detain.
The story in class about how Joyce returned to Ireland only ONCE after his "exile" for his mother shows his true devotion to her and his love, but his leaving Ireland for good is a necessary parting from an older generation in order to form a different identity seperate from his roots in old Ireland.
ReplyDeleteStephen is a very selfish character and cue to the very centralized focus, the novel tends to make us share his selfishness. I found it sad that Stephen took so much pleasure in making himself superior to others, the social norms, and others' opinions. Stephen's mother is one of the characters to whom I felt sympathetic and it saddened me that Stephen sort of alienated her just like most of the people in his life.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of teenagers go through that phase of resenting their parents and thinking that they'll never do the same things their parents do. That phase is followed by the moment of clarity when the kids finally understand why the parents acted the way they did and appreciated the parents. Stephen's mother is just another woman in the book that he has trouble with, all in all.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought of Stephen's mother as a symbol like that before, but I really like the idea of her playing that role. It makes me think of the canary in the coal mine--the bird being the living indicator of a toxic environment. His relationship to his mother certainly indicates the level of concern that Stephen has for his familial relationships, and the fact that his mother suffers because of Stephen's disregard for her has the same impact that the canary's death would have--it is sad for the canary and for those outside the mine, but the miner holding the cage sees the death as a regrettable necessity.
ReplyDeleteWhile Stephen does grow to resent (or wriggle and chafe with embarrassment under) his father's personality and choices in life, his growing apart from his mother has a different, less personal quality. For Stephen at the end, his mother is inseparable from the demands his culture makes on him, the religious and political allegiances his "mother country" expects from him, and which he rejects. There's less of an individual boy feeling ambivalent about his individual mother, and more a symbolic rejection of "mothers" and what they represent. Stephen's seemingly callous comments about her suffering, his vagueness about how many children she's had ("some died"), and his general air of detachment from her should probably be understood in this light. We get more of Simon as an actual person, a character, whereas his mother embodies abstract expectations placed upon him.
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