Let down yourself or your parents?

Perhaps the hardest thing for a teenager to do is not what there parents don't want them to do, but refusing to do what their parents want them to do.  So we see Stephen at the end of Chapter four.  He has rejected the director's offer to join the Order of the Jesuits, and instead has decided to attend university.  Most of us probably applauded him when we read this scene, for not allowing other's expectation to push him away from what we ultimately assume will be his profession: art.  I was certainly one of those people cheering him on, I could see that he'd matured beyond trying to be the one everyone looks up to and says "That Stephen Dedalus, I wish I could be more like him."  So far it seems to work out great for him, in the end of the chapter Stephen finally feels an emotion for another human being.  At the start of Chapter five he has friends at school, and while he seems to not be loving taking his classes he does seem content where he is.

Yet looking back at his family's reaction to his decision not to join the Order, it doesn't seem like such a good one.  When he come's home from being summoned by the director to see all of his little siblings alone in the house with dregs of tea, it is because his parents are "Goneboro toboro lookboro atboro aboro houseboro" (177).  Later his sister tells him it's because the landlord is kicking them out, and Stephen sees how "Even before they set out on life's journey they seemed weary already of the way" (177).  Clearly his family has continued to fall on harder and harder times financially, but Mr. Dedalus keeps Stephen in a very nice Jesuit school.  Stephen's siblings will never be able to get the level of education he got which they all seem to accept, but most of his family don't seem to think he's using that education in the best way.  His mother really doesn't like the idea, with Stephen picking up that "Yes, his mother was hostile to the idea, as he had read from her listless tone" (178).  Though maybe Stephen's decision to go to university will lead to more money further in his life, it seems that for his family the honor they would've had, had Stephen decided to join the Order, would've made all the sacrifices the family made for him worth it-and somehow by him refusing-he has to some degree rejected all that his family has done for him.  I still believe Stephen made the right decision for him personally, but I guess I no longer think he would have been making solely a selfish decision by choosing to join the Order.  

Narcissism or Insecurity?

In third hour yesterday we were discussing the scene were Stephen writes his first poem (pages 73 and 74), and it seemed like the general consensus of the class was that it was an illustration of the narcissism of the artist.  The more I pondered this scene though, the more the narcissism designation seemed improper.  I concluded later that I think this scene shows us that Stephen, and the new artist in general, is very insecure about his work.  Stephen is portrayed as being insecure during his year at Clongowes, but by Chapter 2 he is the more confident leader of a gang.  But then there's this scene with him trying to write a poem about this girl he met at a party whom he rode home with but without working up the courage to kiss her.

Mr. Mitchell said in class that Byron's convention of titling a poem about a women with only her initials was to protect the identity of the married women Byron was having affairs with.  Stephen, nor this mystery girl (who we later learn is Emma), would be married at this point and it wasn't like anything happened-he didn't even kiss her.  Though it could be Stephen was only trying to emulate his literary hero, this style of title also conveniently served the purpose of keeping his personal relation to her hidden.  To anyone reading his poem, E----C---- could just be a figment of his imagination, much in the way Mercedes is in his head after reading The Count of Monte Cristo.  He also drops all the sensory details, something which he had focused on in the past, in favor of telling of "the night and the balmy breeze and the maiden lustre of the moon" (Joyce 74). He practically takes all details about the inspirational moment of his ride with Emma out, leaving only a general love poem to hide his emotions about the event.

Not only does Stephen lose almost all detail in the poem, the physical way that he writes the poem makes him appear insecure.  He sits in his room for hours, long after most of the people in the house would have left for the day.  Then, as soon as he finishes it, he hides the book (74).  Instead of looking over the poem he has just composed, he flees to his mother's bedroom to watch himself.  This is the first poem he's ever finished, so for someone who values his intellectual prowess, you would think he would want to show it off so it's strange that he wants to act like it never even happened. 

Coming of Age: A New Beginning

A few days ago in class we had a writing prompt to talk about what coming of age meant to us.  Growing up in a large extended Jewish family, coming of age is a defined moment.  For a Jewish boy the Bar Mitzvah is the key event that represents his ascension into adulthood.  There are lots of religious things that come along with being an adult but I won't go into that.  But the thing about coming of age in Jewish religion and culture, is that from the moment you are born people are talking about it and preparing you for it.  You don't really get to pick when it is, it just happens at one Sabbath when you are thirteen.  And once its over, BOOM, its like you're part of a whole different club.  People look at you different and you're expected to do things you've never had to do before.  It can be stressful with all the new found responsibilities, but its also really exciting.

Stephen Dedalus, in Portrait I suppose isn't as lucky as I was (or depending on how you look at it maybe he had it better).  In his life so far, there hasn't been one day where he's come of age in the eyes of the world.  For his parents, it seems that once he returned from boarding school and was allowed to sit at the Christmas dinner table for the first time, he has come of age.  He's expected to sit and eat politely, yet when he tries to act like he understands all the political rhetoric being thrown around the table his father turns to him and says, "What are you laughing at, you little puppy, you?" (27)  Stephen takes another step towards coming of age when he leads a gang of boys over the summer, but I still couldn't say he's come of age.  I have a feeling that throughout the book there will never be a point where the reader can say "This is the moment where Stephen has come of age," instead it will be a gradual change that will be hard to notice until the end, when all of a sudden we see a matured Stephen who has certainly come of age and are forced to wonder when we missed it.