Themes from a Passage by Joyce
Themes from a Passage by Joyce
In this passage, Joyce develops motifs and images present throughout the book to create a moment of epiphany, where the speaker realizes a moment of artistic innovation in a poem In addition, this passage reflects important themes in the novel.
Joyce uses the motif of “dawn” to suggest that this is a breakthrough moment in the speaker’s life. He begins by saying “Towards dawn, he awoke.” This is a foreshadowing of the new and innovative moment that is about to come in the passage. He is describes as “waking to a morning knowledge, a morning inspiration.” The narrator also describes the time as the “hour of dawn when…plants open to light.” This idea of light and inspiration will be discussed shortly, but it is important to note how Joyce relates them directly to dawn. Dawn is when the sun’s light first appears in the sky, and in this passage, Joyce uses dawn as a motif to imply the speaker’s epiphany.
Joyce employs water imagery throughout this passage. At the beginning, he ties water to the morning imagery by referring to dew. “His soul was all dewy wet.” This line is explained by the next line: “Over his limbs in sleep pale cool waves of light had passed.” As discussed above, the speaker has been inspired by the time dawn has come, and this reference to cool waves suggest that the water refreshed the speaker or soaked him in a fluid of creative innovation. This is why his soul is described as wet, and later as laying “amid cool waters.” Also, his spirit is described as “pure as the purest water, sweet as dew.” This reference to pureness and earlier to the pale waves both refer to the idea of a clean soul and freedom from sin. The theme of purity has been developing throughout the novel, but here it is developed somewhat differently. Although the water is pure, earlier Stephen saw purity and religion as boring and dull, but now he associates them directly with this literary moment of creativity that he has. So, here we begin to see that although the water is associated with freedom from sin, it is also linked to art. This passage has a strong development in the use of water, as earlier in the novel, water was associated with sickness and death, since Stephen became sick from the water...