He feels powerless and small because the language available to him at this time is not enough to capture and define the ever expanding, complicated reality that is his own identity. These feelings of helplessness can only be cured when he has command over his own narrative like the “fellows in poetry and rhetoric.” Stephen’s search for agency over his identity continues as he matures. His family loses money and has to move from his childhood home to a cheaper part of Dublin. Joyce writes “ For some time he had felt the slight changes in his house; and these changes in what he had deemed unchangeable were so many slight shocks to his boyish conception of the world” (Joyce 67). Suddenly, the list that Stephen made as a child seems obsolete.
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But, still, he can only frame his encounters in the language of the Catholic church and soon his perceived sins begin to pain him deeply. In the midst of the severe sermons that have become part of his everyday life he dreams of hell. “That was his hell. God had allowed him to see the hell reserved for his sins: stinking, bestial, malignant, a hell of lecherous goatish fiends” (Joyce 149). He equates sex with barbaric punishment and the goatish fiends represent his sin of lust. The dream draws his body into the spiritual crisis, he vomits and convulses. He becomes weak, scared, and unsure of himself and looks for security in confession. However, it’s implied that the confession is not just for the sex he had, but for the ways he attempted to redefine himself outside the norms of Irish customs and …show more content…
The church defines “good” and “bad,” “holy” and “sinful,” and the Catholic identity for him He resolves to become the most devoted to God by rendering himself to an ascetic lifestyle. He finds pleasure in his creative forms of self-flagellation. But before long, independence and control over his identity concern him again. These conflicts come to head when the priest at his school compels him to join the order. The priest, whose incessant repetition of the word power ironically draws parallels to the snake of eden, tells him he has been called to the occupation by God himself. He highlights the power that Stephen gain if he chooses this path. He stresses that his influence would be second only to “the Almighty God” which, in this era in Ireland, is not a huge overstatement. Stephen ruminates on the possibility. He finds pleasure in the possibility of hearing and shaping people's’, especially womens’ confessions. But, even with all the institutional power he could gain, he turns down the offer. After imagining the daily occurrences of priesthood and the impossibility of true, self-defined freedom under the Catholic church, Stephen recalls and encampment poor cottages that smelled of rotted cabbages he once saw. Joyce writes “He [Stephen] smiled to think that it was this disorder, the misrule and confusion of his father’s house and stagnation of vegetable life,
But, still, he can only frame his encounters in the language of the Catholic church and soon his perceived sins begin to pain him deeply. In the midst of the severe sermons that have become part of his everyday life he dreams of hell. “That was his hell. God had allowed him to see the hell reserved for his sins: stinking, bestial, malignant, a hell of lecherous goatish fiends” (Joyce 149). He equates sex with barbaric punishment and the goatish fiends represent his sin of lust. The dream draws his body into the spiritual crisis, he vomits and convulses. He becomes weak, scared, and unsure of himself and looks for security in confession. However, it’s implied that the confession is not just for the sex he had, but for the ways he attempted to redefine himself outside the norms of Irish customs and …show more content…
The church defines “good” and “bad,” “holy” and “sinful,” and the Catholic identity for him He resolves to become the most devoted to God by rendering himself to an ascetic lifestyle. He finds pleasure in his creative forms of self-flagellation. But before long, independence and control over his identity concern him again. These conflicts come to head when the priest at his school compels him to join the order. The priest, whose incessant repetition of the word power ironically draws parallels to the snake of eden, tells him he has been called to the occupation by God himself. He highlights the power that Stephen gain if he chooses this path. He stresses that his influence would be second only to “the Almighty God” which, in this era in Ireland, is not a huge overstatement. Stephen ruminates on the possibility. He finds pleasure in the possibility of hearing and shaping people's’, especially womens’ confessions. But, even with all the institutional power he could gain, he turns down the offer. After imagining the daily occurrences of priesthood and the impossibility of true, self-defined freedom under the Catholic church, Stephen recalls and encampment poor cottages that smelled of rotted cabbages he once saw. Joyce writes “He [Stephen] smiled to think that it was this disorder, the misrule and confusion of his father’s house and stagnation of vegetable life,