The variety of styles is part of what makes Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man such an enjoyable read. The close is very simply done, all in the form of Stephen's journal entries before leaving Ireland. There are lush and intricate passages, sections narrated in a direct style, and highly experimental sections. The book shows a wide range of narrative styles. We see events only as they are filtered through Stephen. Even when the work is narrated in a straightforward manner, the narrative voice never strays from the interior life of Stephen Dedalus. Although many sections of the novel are narrated in a relatively direct style, Joyce writes long passages that sustain a complex and difficult language attempting to approximate the workings of human thought.
The opening section is in stream of consciousness with a child protagonist, and the novel is marked by an increasing sophistication of narrative voice as the protagonist matures. While Portrait lacks the ambition and scope of Joyce's later stream of conscious masterpiece, Ulysses, in many ways it was a revolutionary novel. While in Paris in 1902, Joyce discovered the French novel Les Lauriers sont Coup?s Joyce credits this novel with the inspiration for creating his own style of stream of consciousness narrative. The narrative is anchored in the interior life of a character rather than from the perspective of an objective third-person narrator. Stream of conscious is a narrative technique through which the author attempts to represent the fluid and eruptive nature of human thought. Previous to the publication of Portrait, Joyce had published several stories under the pseudonym "Stephen Dedalus."Ī Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is one of the earlier examples in English literature of a novel that makes extensive use of stream of consciousness. Joyce began working on the stories that formed the foundation of the novel as early as 1903, after the death of is mother. Like Stephen, Joyce left Ireland to pursue the life of a poet and writer. Like Stephen, Joyce was the eldest of ten children and received his education at Jesuit schools. Like Stephen, Joyce was the son of a religious mother and a financially inept father. Like Stephen, Joyce had early experiences with prostitutes during his teenage years and struggled with questions of faith.
Chronicling the life of Stephen Dedalus from early childhood to young adulthood and his life-changing decision to leave Ireland, the novel is profoundly autobiographical. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was first published in serial form in the Egoist in the years 1914-15.
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