Essay on Discourse in A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man

Authoritative Discourse in A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man In throng Joyces A Portrait of An Artist As A Young Man, the main character, Stephen Dedalus, struggles between his natural instincts, or what Bakhtin calls the internally persuasive discourse that is not endorse up by an authority at all, and his learned response, reinforced by the authoritative discourse of religion. To Stephens internally persuasive discourse, his natural grammatical gender drive is not wrong. It is only after he succumbs to the authoritative discourse of religion that he learns that such a natural human drive is bad. Thus, he learns that it is wrong to succumb to sex he does not think that it is bad on his own. In this case, the authoritative discourse that considers sexual drive to be bad becomes Stephens internally persuasive discourse. He learns that his natural urges are wrong and, as a result, he learns to deny them and pretend them to be nonexistent. This is how the authoritative discours e becomes Stephens internally persuasive discourse. The evidence that Stephen relies on his senses is best shown by the description of how much he has to deny his senses in order to reach the discourse of religion. from each one of his senses was brought under a religious discipline. In order to mortify the sense of sight he made it his rule to walk in the street with downhearted eyes, glancing neither to right nor left and never behind him. His eyes shunned every encounter with the eyes of women (162-3). However, there is a natural impulse from which he cannot ladder and that is his sense of position. He may try to deny it in all possible ways but he cannot wholly escape it. This sense of touch is what causes ... ...567-75. Epstein, Edmund L. The Ordeal of Stephen Dedalus. Carbondale and Edwardsville Southern Illinois U P, 1971. Givens, Seon, ed. James Joyce Two Decades of Criticism. New York 1948. 2nd ed. 1963. Goldman, Arnold. The Joyce Paradox Form and Freedom in his Fiction. Evanston, IL Northwestern U P, 1966. Halper, Nathan. The primordial James Joyce. Columbia Essays on Modern Writers. Ed. George Stade. New York Columbia U P, 1973. Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The Portable James Joyce. Ed. Harry Levin. New York Penguin, 1976. Levin, Harry. The Artist. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Text, Criticism, and Notes. Ed. Chester G. Anderson. New York Penguin, 1968. 399-415. Wright, David G. Characters of Joyce. Dublin Gill and Macmillan, 1983.