Looking Out of Jaded Eyes

“Symbol of departure or of loneliness?” (226).

Points for Reflection

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Chp. 5

Chp. 5

1. Stephen ponders whether his beloved’s life is “simple and strange as a bird’s life” (216).  Does he ever configure himself as avian, as bird-like?
2. Cranly asks whether Stephen was happier when younger and more ardent in his religious belief.  Stephen responds, “Often happy [. . .] and often unhappy” (240).  Consider laughter as one manifestation of happiness: does Stephen laugh more, or less, often in chapter five than in the preceding chapters?
3. how frequently does Stephen look or respond “coldly” to others, or think on something with “bitterness”?
4. what artistic goals does Stephen set for himself, and why does he consider “silence, exile, and cunning” (247) to be useful tools in achieving his aims?
5. does Stephen visualize his artistic future as one that impacts others?
6. does Joyce set up Stephen as an ideal, progressive and autonomous young artist, or as a genuine but quite fallible thinker?
7. one could argue that criticism often tells us at least as much about the criticizer as the criticized.  What do Stephen’s silent editorial comments about others reveal about himself?
8. does Stephen regularly attend class once at university?
9. how does one reconcile Stephen’s conviction that his artistry pulls him away from others (176) with his gladness to find himself “still in the midst of common lives” (177)?
10. does music play an integral part in Stephen’s aesthetic theories?
11. do you concur with any of the conclusions reached by Stephen’s philosophical musings (204-15)?
12. does Joyce appear to implicitly ratify Stephen’s ideas about the artist’s personality “refin[ing] itself out of existence, impersonalis[ing] itself (215)?
13. does the manner of Stephen’s waking (217) exemplify the kind of esthetic stasis he idealized a day earlier, the moment of the artist’s ideal creative fecundity (213-215)?
14. does the poem Stephen writes about Emma Clery recall the styles or images of any other poets whose work Joyce would have known (223-24)?
15. does Stephen admire any of his instructors?
16. do the great outdoors of Ireland aid Stephen in any important ways, or do they prove more a hindrance?
17. why does Stephen think so little of the Dean with whom he interacts?
18. why does Stephen enjoy Moynihan’s company?
19. is MacCann correct in accusing Stephen of being antisocial (177)?  What of his observation that while Stephen is a “good fellow,” he has “yet to learn the dignity of altruism and the responsibility of the human individual” (198-99)?
20. what characteristics of Cranly help explain why he and Stephen appear to be such close friends?
21. of what does Stephen accuse Cranly, in his own imagination, and does there seem to be any justification for this conclusion?
22. what decision does Stephen reach concerning his friendship with Cranly, and why?
23. why might Stephen be so critical of Davin?
24. has Stephen learned to respect women as three-dimensional equals?
25. we don’t know rather late (222) that Stephen’s beloved his actually Emma Clery, whom he has know for a decade.  What impact does withholding this information from the reader have on our understanding of Stephen’s romantic sensibility.
26. do Stephen’s spiritual experiences match his rhetoric in chapter five?
27. do Stephen’s diary entries make it easier, or harder, for him to leave Ireland?
28. with whom is Stephen wrestling (252)?
29. recall that in chp. 4, as his fellows call him by both his christened name and his surname, that Stephen’s “strange name seemed to him a prophecy” (168).  Is Stephen living up to his name at the novel’s end?
30. recall the dissension around the Christmas table years earlier when Charles Stewart Parnell’s fate entered the conversation.  In addition to the issue of Irish politics, what other social topics does mention of this historical figure allow Joyce to raise early in the novel, and which of these reappear in chapter five?
31. David asks Stephen, point blank, whether he’s Irish at all, having noticed that Stephen talks against English literature but also against Irish informers (202). Does Stephen consider Irish culture and history an important part of his identity?

Above the City (1959)
Mary Swanzy

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu