In the narrative, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, written by James Joyce, the chief character Stephen Dedalus has many brushs with adult females. Womans and gender are major influences on Stephen? s adolescent life. Another major factor that has an influence on Stephen? s life is the Church. Women and gender struggle with the Church and its beliefs, and that is one of Stephen? s major jobs therefore far. Stephen is holding a really large individuality crisis, from being a God fearing Catholic to a really hormonal adolescent.
As Stephen sits at the & # 8220 ; grownups & # 8221 ; dinner tabular array for the first clip, his male parent, Mr. Casey and Dante are contending about faith and political relations in Ireland. As they are reasoning, Stephen? s train of thought leads him to believe about Eileen. Eileen Vance was the small miss that Stephen wanted to get married when he was younger. She is described to hold ivory custodies and aureate hair, which confuses Stephen with the phrases, & # 8220 ; Tower of Ivory & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; House of Gold & # 8221 ; which is portion of the Roman Catholic Litany of Our Lady. Subsequently when Stephen is at school, he once more thinks about Eileen. Stephen gets his first animal experience from Eileen when she puts her manus into his pocket and touches his manus. Stephen gets rather confused with the footings of the Litany of Our Lady so he starts to tie in the & # 8220 ; Tower of Ivory & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; House of Gold & # 8221 ; to Eileen. The manner James Joyce describes the scene, & # 8220 ; She had put her manus into his pocket where his manus was and he had felt how cool and thin and soft her manus was. & # 8221 ; ( 43 ) gives the reader the thought that Stephen enjoyed the feeling. The lone job with Eileen was that she was a Protestant and Stephen was a Catholic. Stephen besides associates adult females with the Virgin Mary, who was the female parent of Jesus Christ. He thinks adult females as pure, merely as Mary was and since he already associated the & # 8220 ; Tower of Ivory & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; House of Gold & # 8221 ; with Eileen, he assumes her to be like the Virgin.
been masturbating” put him into person wickedness, Stephen is really burdened. Alas, Stephen is overwhelmed by his desires and ends up traveling to a cocotte. This cocotte is a mix of what he was looking for in a adult female, the Mercedes features “she came over to him and embraced him gaily and soberly? her weaponries held him steadfastly to her” ( 101 ) and the motherly/pure features ” she passed her clinking manus through his hair, naming him a small rascal.” ( 101 ) . Although Stephen knows that he is transgressing he wants to interrupt away someway from the good of nature and experience what it feels like to be fallen like Adam or Lucifer.
When Stephen hears the discourse by Father Arnall, he feels remorseful of his actions. He thinks that the discourse is wholly focused on him. And from hearing this discourse, Stephen decides to alter his ways back towards the church. He does such a good occupation of being & # 8220 ; Holy & # 8221 ; that he is asked to fall in the priesthood. But this makes him travel on a rush of power hungriness. He thinks of all the power and regard he will acquire if he joins the priesthood and of all the secrets that he will hear of adult females and misss. This once more makes him to believe lustfully and makes him transgress. He eventually decides that alternatively of come ining priesthood, or for that affair, even live a spiritual life, he would go an creative person and free himself from the philosophies of faith. When Stephen makes this determination, another miss is influential in doing this happen. Stephen sees a miss on the beach and he is taken by her physically beauty but besides compares her to an & # 8220 ; ? angel of mortal young person and beauty. & # 8221 ; She was what all the misss before her were except more. This miss tells Stephen to travel towards art and so that is how he eventually decides to take his life.
Stephen has experienced many different feelings that were conflicting within him from his ain desires to the philosophies of the Catholic Church. Through out his adolescent life was a roller-coaster of emotions of sexual desires and guilt of holding those desires and confusion because of the guilty feelings. A batch of the confusion, stems from the absence of a strong acknowledgment of his ain ego. He was ever confused with his feelings and what he thought the church expected him to experience. However, in the terminal, he seems to hold figured out what he wanted through another desire, so I wonder if he will really accomplish what he wants to or will he neglect and go baffled once more.