Стилистический анализ текста «A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man» by James Joyce

«A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man» by James Joyce
The text under review is a short extract from the third chapter of the novel «A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man» by Irish writer James Joyce. The genre of the novel and exactly of this extract is novel. The whole deal with this genre is that it shows us the development of a character through his experiences and thoughts. J. Joyce’s «Portrait» is quite well known for being one of the first real Modernist novels.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man tells the story of Stephen Dedalus, a boy growing up in Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century, as he gradually decides to cast off all his social, familial, and religious constraints to live a life devoted to the art of writing. The 3 Chapter shows Stephen’s consequent religious crisis. The author deals with the eternal questions of a sinless and a sinned soul, of the hell and paradise. Stephen is suffering from guilty conscience. He stays alone in his room «to be alone with his soul, to examine his conscience, to meet his sins face to face, to recall their times and manners and circumstances, to weep over them». This extract shows us deep emotions of the main character. It’s also very important to the whole plot – Stephen realizes here his own sinful lapse.
The novel is written primarily as a third-person narrative with minimal dialogue. Free indirect discourse is a narrative style that combines traditional third-person narrative with insights into a character’s mind that resemble the first person. For example, we often "hear" Stephen’s thoughts mediated by the narrator, and one instance can be found immediately following Stephen’s confession in Chapter Three. Instead of having markers of interiority and exteriority ("Stephen thought," "he wondered," etc.), we often slide smoothly from a moment of external description and action into Stephen’s thoughts, with no alerts from our narrator:
The descriptions given in the passage are connected with the inner state of the character. The author used the simile to show the Stephen’s room:
«He waited still at the threshold as at the entrance to some dark cave».
Stephen wanted to be alone with his soul, but he was afraid of his conscience, that’s why the external of the house seemed so dark: the room was like a dark cave, the hall was full of
This extract has two levels of images. The first – is real – it’s Stephen. But we see him through his consciousness. The second – are the images from Stephen’s imagination: evil spirits with «murmurous voices» in the room and «Goatish creatures with human faces, hornybrowed, lightly bearded and grey as indiarubber» from his dream. The imaginary images are shown with help of epithets: «murmuring faces», «murmurous voices», «hard eyes», «cruel malignity», «stinking, bestial, malignant, a hell of lecherous goatish fiends».
This extract has a lot of sacral words. The author used a lot of church vocabulary to underline the spiritual thoughts of the character. E.g.: «soul», «sin», «sinful», «devils», «God», «pray», «prayer», «Goatish creatures», «hell», «confess» etc. It should be said that vocabulary with negative meaning prevails in the extract: only the word sin with its word forms is used for 12 times.
To describe the physical and mental well-being of the character the author uses such words with negative meaning: chill, unrest, weariness, ache, sickness, . But it’s not the physical ache:
«His hands were cold and damp and his limbs ached with chill. Bodily unrest and chill and weariness… He felt only an ache of soul and body, his whole being, memory, will, understanding, flesh, benumbed and weary».
The author uses a lot of metaphors to show a worrying, scourging by the memory nature of the main character. His soul, conscience are feeling and suffering:
– «… at every step his soul mounted with his feet, sighing in the ascent, through a region of viscid gloom».
– «He waited in fear, his soul pining within him…»
– He felt only an ache of soul and body, his whole being, memory, will, understanding, flesh, benumbed and weary.
– «The ache of conscience ceased and he walked onward swiftly through the dark streets».
– «His soul sickened at the thought of a torpid snaky life feeding itself out of the tender marrow of his life and fattening upon the slime of lust».
The author gives the opportunity to hear us the Stephen’s prayer. This prayer is full of sacred language: He teas God, the Eternal, Lord Jesus and exclamatory sentences: O harbinger of day! O light of the pilgrim!
Rhetorical questions are used to enforce the philosophical thoughts: «It could happen in an instant. But how so quickly?» «O why was that so? O why?»With help of different stylistic devices the author shows how Stephen is horrified. We understand that he’s sure he’s going to hell. The thought of his past sins torments him, and he has a grotesque vision of a personal hell he’s sure awaits him. At the end of the chapter Stephen confesses his sins and vows to start a new life of religious observance.