A Portrait of an Artist As a Young Man

James Joyce’s novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man gives an account of Stephen Dedalus’s struggle to understand and then reject from family, church, and nation in order to become an artist, thus allowing him to embrace his interests.
In the beginning Stephen is portrayed as an object in a story, a character (baby tuckoo) in his father’s narration. Stephen is the very young child whose story is being created by others. Stephen’s life is shaped by his parents and a character rooted in a story he didn’t create. When in Clongowes Wood College Stephen is ...