Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is an autobiographical novel of Joyce’s early life. The main character is Stephen Dedalus who is also central to Joyce’s later novel, Ulysses.
Early in 1892 the Joyce family moved from Bray to a large semi-detached house in Blackrock called Leoville at 23 Carysfort Avenue. It was at Leoville (right) that Joyce, aged nine or ten, first began to write. He wrote poetry, essays and, with a neighbouring boy, began to write a novel. It is believed that Joyce wrote his first published work – a poem called Et Tu Healy - in this Blackrock address.
In Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Joyce recalls many of his childhood scenes through the character Stephen Dedalus:
The frequent walks he would take with his father and uncle:
On Sundays Stephen with his father and his granduncle took their constitutional. The old man was a nimble walker in spite of his corn and often ten or twelve mile of the road were covered. The little village of Stillorgan was the parting of the ways. Either they went to the left towards the Dublin mountains or along the Goatstown road and thence into Dundrum, coming home by Sandyford.
The journeys with the milkman;
Aubrey [a neighbouring boy] and Stephen had a common milkman and often they drove out in the milk-car to Carrickmines where the cows were at grass. While the men were milking the boys would take turns riding the tractable mare round the field. But…
The cattle which had seemed so beautiful in the country on sunny days revolted him and he could not even look at the milk they yielded.
Anther important location was Blackrock Park where the young Dedalus would practice his running;
Then would begin Stephen’s run round the park. Mike Flynn would stand at the gate near the railway station, watch in hand, while Stephen ran round the track in the style Mike Flynn favoured, his head high lifted, his knees well lifted and his hands straight down by his sides…On the way home
uncle Charles would often pay a visit to the Blackrock chapel and, as the fonts was above Stephen’ reach, the old man would dip his hand and then sprinkle holy water briskly about Stephen’s clothes and on the floor of the porch.
The Joyce’s stay in Leoville did not last long. In either late 1892 or early 1893 there was a dramatic and forced departure from Blackrock – the rent had not been paid and the family were evicted. Joyce describes the scene:
Two great yellow caravans had halted one morning before the door and men had come tramping into the house to dismantle it. The furniture had been hustled out through the front garden which was strewn with wisps of straw and rope ends and into the huge vans at the gate. When all had been
safely stowed the vans had set off noisily down the avenue: and from the window of the railway carriage, in which he had sat with his redeyed mother, Stephen had seen them lumbering heavily along the Merrion Road.
The next time Joyce ‘lived’ in the county was in September 1904 when he stayed at the Martello Tower in Sandycove, which was being rented by fellow writer Oliver St. John Gogarty. It was a short and unhappy stay ending after just a few nights. Joyce’s departure was prompted when another guest at the Tower, Samuel Chevenix Trench, had a nightmare about a black panther and fired a handgun at the imaginary animal. Not long after he had another nightmare and this time Gogarty grabbed the gun and fired at the pots and pans above Joyce’s head.
According to Gogarty, ‘This was too much for the sensitive soul who rose, pulled on his frayed trousers and shirt…and in silence left the tower forever.’
Joyce chose the Tower and his experiences there as the starting point for his epic work Ulysses. Few books intimidate readers more than Ulysses. It has been said that the book is as enjoyable as it is difficult. Joyce used elaborate means to tell the very simple story of ordinary life in Dublin on June 16, 1904.
The two main figures in Ulysses correspond to those in Homer’s Odyssey. Leopold Bloom is Ulysses while Stephen Dedalus is Ulysses son, Telemachus. The first chapter of the book is set in the Martello Tower in Sandycove and Dedalus, like Telemachus, is forced out a residence and he then sets off in search of his lost father. The main theme of this chapter is religion.
The book begins,
Views around the tower are described with the sea famously described as the ‘The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea.’ A lone boat sails by the Muglins a plume of smoke from the mailboat is seen.
The three sit down for breakfast and an old woman arrives with milk from the Sandycove dairy. She addresses Mulligan:
Are you a medical student, sir? the old woman asked.
I am ma’am, Buck Mulligan answered.
Look at that now, she said.
Stephen listened in scornful silence. She bows her old head to a voice that speaks to her loudly, her bonesetter, her medicineman: me she slights. To the voice that will shrive and oil for the grave all there is of her but her woman’s unclean loins, of man’s flesh made not in God’s likeness, the serpent’s prey. And to the loud voice that now bids her be silent with wondering unsteady eyes.
Do you understand what he says? Stephen asked her.
Is it French you are talking, sir? the old woman said to Haines.
Irish, Buck Mulligan said. Is there Gaelic on you?
I thought it was Irish, she said, by the sound of it. Are you from the west, sir?
I am an Englishman, Haines answered.
He’s English, Buck Mulligan said, and he thinks we ought to speak Irish in Ireland.
Sure we ought to, the old woman said, and I’m ashamed I don’t speak the language myself. I’m told it’s a grand language by them that knows.
The second chapter is set in the Clifton School, Summerfield Lodge in Dalkey. Like every chapter of Ulysses there is a theme.
In this chapter it is history. Stephen is giving a history lesson to his pupils (Joyce once taught at this school) although neither is paying too much attention. Stephen describes history as ‘a nightmare from which I am trying to awake’. A local landmark features in one exchange:
Tell me now, Stephen said, poking the boy’s shoulder with the book, what is a pier.
A pier, sir, Armstrong said. A thing out in the water. A kind of bridge. Kingstown pier, sir.
Some laughed again: mirthless but with meaning. Two in the back bench whispered. Yes. They knew: had never learned nor ever been innocent. All. With envy they watched their faces: Edith, Ethel, Gerty, Lily. Their likes: their breaths, too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets tittering in the struggle.
Kingstown pier, Stephen said. Yes, a disappointed bridge.
The words troubled their gaze.
James Joyce