Religion. Many of you hear this word and smile, or shutter, or ask yourself when you were last to confession, or even say please, please never ever say that word again. At some point in your life, religion has had an impact you, whether it was a discussion with a friend, being told as a child to sit in an uncomfortable pew so you could be told what you should think, having to recite words written many years before you in a foreign language like Latin, or when you where getting married and somebody had to “okay” it. What ever the reason; you have probably questioned if this all -seeing and all-knowing being really exists since you have never seen “Him” and you are essentially relying on “blind faith. ” You are neither the first nor the last person to question the existence of God, and the character Stephen, from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man written by James Joyce, asks this very question as he continuously reverts to God’s teachings and then strays away from them within the same breath.
Stephen Throughout his life, Stephen remains uncertainty towards the Catholic Church, his family, and his life’s own meaning. Though the teachings of the Catholic Church do not hurt Stephen, its followers, however, begin to lead Stephen away. It is not God who brings the ruler down upon Stephen’s outstretched hands in order to punish him, instead it is Father Dolan who paddles him; his mother, a Catholic woman, who denies his “intention” to marry his next door neighbor because she was raised with a different religion background; and priests who do not follow the 10 Commandments in their actions towards Stephen. Stephen’s Father becomes a drunk, irresponsible and called him a female dog; to which Stephen laughs at his Father’s own foolishness. Initially, it is mother causes many of Stephen’s problems with women. For example, it is the zany Dante, who confronts Stephen regarding his religious philosophy with traditional religious ideas. From the punishment and degradation of those around him, Stephen uses art to sooth his soul and takes the good and the bad to create a form of beauty, thus he is able to create an artist within himself. Art is used as an escape, but also as a means to question his own mortal beliefs. Stephen whole-heartedly desires to become a priest, however he then quickly denounces himself to be the “sinner of all sinners” and he rejects the Church. “Amen. So be it. Welcome, O Life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.” The manifestation of Stephen’s own confusion in himself and others, results in the discombobulated writing style Joyce uses to demonstrate Stephen’s journey, leaving the reader just as confused. To this point, Stephen describes his hands as a object rather than a form which is apart of his own body, helping the reader better understand Stephen’s experience.
Last September, I asked what is the relevance of history or the past and how does history affect the future and who we become. Stephen is a prime example demonstrating how a person’s past reflects who he will become. Like me, Stephan was raised Catholic and inspired by the Bible’s teachings. However, he strays from the Church due to his inability to connect with others and his necessity for individuality. At one point in his life, Stephen doesn’t believe in the Catholic Church’s veracity or interpretation of the Bible, rather he yearns for individual perspective and independent views towards Christianity and the Bible. I, like Stephen, have doubts regarding God’s teachings and have wondered about the likelihood or possibility of an all-powerful God who loves me to the depth I have been taught. Unlike Stephen, I came to a point in my life where I believed with “blind faith” the Bible’s teachings, to find healing and strength within something I can neither see nor feel, instead of believing “ that Jesus was not what he pretended to be.” It is our past, which makes us who we are; it creates the experiences from which we are “hearing their shrill twofold cry, watching their flight”. I can hear and listen, and can learn from my “flight” to grow into the person I will become.
I do not believe that Joyce writes a book to negate or condemn the Catholic Church and its followers; instead his main character goes off the religious beaten path to find his own path, he become an artist finding strength and comfort within art rather than the traditional teachings. Like Joyce, I am not a fan of religion because many followers twist religious teachings to explain their own bizarre beliefs. Unlike Joyce, I still believe in the Catholic Church and its ability to save, protect, and guide individuals, though not always in the most conventional way, and to offer safe harbor to the lost and the weary that are trying to find their way.
