"Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo" (Joyce 3).
The above quote is the opening paragraph of the novel. This is the only time throughout the novel in which the voice is someone's other than Stephen or an outside narrator. This paragraph is spoken by his father, who throughout the course of the novel, becomes the symbol of Steven's family struggles and the choices he makes regarding his devotion to his family heritage. The above paragraph symbolizes Stephen's dependency on his mother and father to feed him stories and information to keep his mind occupied. The narration on the first page switches between an outside narrator and Stephen's father signifying that while Stephen is old enough to have some personal thoughts and emotions, his mind is not advanced enough to produce any productive acitivity. This dependency is representative of not only Stephen's emotional and mental dependency on his parents, but it is also representative of his parents' responsibility to his religious upbringing and to his education of his heritage.
The next pivotal event that concerns Stephen's father is his sudden, grave financial situation. In this instance, Stephen's father loses wealth, symbolizes the beginning of Stephen's realization that he cannot find wealth in his current life. Stephen's lack of wealth, however, is not monetary, it is a lack of friendship and self discovery that leaves him "poor." He has no friends at Clongowes and starts questioning why he blindly follows the society standards that he will eventually discover hold him back. With Stephen's father's financial loses, comes a loss of trust. Stephen find he can no longer find stability within in family, and he begins questioning if he can find stability in any form of authority, including the church and government.
Stephen's break from his father, and therefore his religion and heritage, becomes clear when Stephen and his father visit Cork where his father gets drunk and reminisces about his past. Joyce paints a picture of a man who is self-destructive and, instead of facing his problems, he masks them with alcohol and nostalgia. Stephen's inability to positively handle his sexual desires mirrors his father's inability to handle his own stresses, and in some ways, Stephen's use of prostitutes reflects his father's dependency on alcohol and memories. The lack of ability for Stephen to connect with his father, mirrors the way in which Stephen cannot connect with the Catholic Church or the government and society of Ireland.
As Stephen advances and enters his late teen years, his father is mentioned less and less. At the beginning of Chapter 5, the distance between the two is quite clear: "Is your lazy bitch of a brother gone out yet?" (189). This scene at home happens just before Stephen truly immerses himself into the study of aesthetics and art and writing. This obvious separation from his father is Stephen's symbolic break from the burdens that organized religion and his heritage have placed on him. Stephen's father represents everything that was holding Stephen back from becoming the artist he was meant to be.
"His heart trembled; his breath came faster and a wild spirit passed over his limbs as though he were soaring sunward. His heart trembled in an ecstasy of fear and his soul was in flight. His soul was soaring in an air beyond the world and the body he knew was purified in a breath and delivered of incertitude and made radiant and comingled with the element of the spirit. An ecstasy of flight made radiant with his eyes and wild his breath and tremulous and wild and radiant his windswept limbs," (183).
Before we even began reading this novel, we were instructed to research the Dedalus myth. The above passage correlates directly to the Deadalus myth, in which, Deadalus constructed his own wings to escape from his own prison toward the sun. The above paragraph is a paragraph of escape and purification. The repetition of the word "wild" symbolizes Stephen's deep connection to the purest, most primal form of himself. He becomes one with nature, untamed by religion, family, or government. The idea that his heart "trembled" instead of "beat" describes Stephen's close proximity to his passion-his passion for words. His soul is said to "comingle" with his body, which signifies the long-awaited connection between Stephen's physical being and his wants, needs, and desires. The idea that his flight, symbolic of freedom, is radiant and wild to his eyes, breath, and limbs indicates that freedom has advanced on all aspects of Stephen's being: his vision, his soul, and his body. This passage immediately precedes Stephen's viewing of the bird-like, beautiful woman in the ocean, which marks his acceptance of women as beautiful being, instead of creatures of desire. It is this flight, this freedom, that allows Stephen to view the world in a way that does not prohibit him from becoming the artist he is meant to be.
Opinion:
Well, I have to admit, this book was not very enjoyable to read alone. I often found myself confused or too wrapped up in word choice to see what exactly was going on at a given point in the story. However, the class discussions of specific passages were very enjoyable. It amazes me that someone can so acutely record thought process and the act of aging. Both are intangible ideas that Joyce was able to transform into word form. It blows my mind. It's interesting because I find myself wondering that if this story had been written from a female perspective, would I have enjoyed the novel more and been able to follow the thought process with less confusion? Possibly. But I think this is a novel that is easily applicable to some part, whether it be meaningless or important, of everyone's life. The only elements I missed from this book were the views others had toward Stephen. While it could be assumed or deduced, I feel like I could not full grasp the character of Stephen because no one else's thought were recorded. I understand that that is the idea of this book, for it to be only Stephen's thoughts, but I still missed outside views.
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