A Waterborne Solution
A Waterborne Solution
In his novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Joyce uses water-sea-liquid imagery to show that a person who desires to become an artist must first achieve a complete understanding of himself and personal circumstances before he can reject old conventions of thought and custom and finally realize a unique perception of the world.
In the first part of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce portrays the young Stephen Dedalus as an insecure and confused young man. Throughout his early adolescence Stephen suffers through many identity crises. For a time he was a whoremonger, later he wanted to become a priest, finally he thought about becoming a teacher. All the while he seemed to be in a stagnant cycle of routine, indeed his life seemed to have "a smell of stale water"(ch.1) because it was going nowhere in poverty stricken Dublin. The stale water represented Stephen’s static self image. He was perpetually confused and never really knew what direction he wanted to go in life, hence, for a time he went nowhere. As the first part of the story continued and Stephen dabbled in one thing or another, but continued to have trouble figuring out his own goals for life. He experimented a lot, but all of his searching lacked depth, instead it was as if he was a submarine "bobbing on the surface of the water"(ch.2) unable to commit to any real meaningful voyage into the sea; or in Stephen’s case, to look inward and realize his true purpose in life. Bobbing on top of the surface indicates that instead of diving and exploring, Stephen instead drifts aimlessly and without purpose. As the first part of the story winds down, Stephen begins to feel uneasy and apprehensive about his current situation. Here, Stephen begins to cultivate an understanding of himself and what he wants to accomplish in life; like a rising tide in which "the water rises inch by inch"(ch.3) Stephen’s self-awareness was growing and he came to the threshold of comprehending what he had to do in the second part of the story. The rising water correlates to Stephen’s rising confidence and ability to form a positive self-image.
As the second part of the story commences, Joyce uses Dublin and a perceived common Irish culture to show that Stephen must...