A Family portrait of The Musician as a Young Man

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Ireland in europe: for centuries, dreamers and tourists have associated it with rolling green hills, misty, cool fog, smiling, unshod peasants, moss-covered castles constructed of natural stone, and haunting Celtic music. This romantic picture may suit the foreigner, but for Sophie Daedalus, the hero of James Joyces autobiographical work of genius A Face of the Specialist as a Young Man, it is a vision that may not become further from the fact. Stephens Ireland in europe is a land of limit and hypocrisy, of dirt and grime and poverty, of boredom and vexation in short, a location he longs to escape. Throughout the novel, the image of a cow recurs as being a motif and becomes key point in the progress Stephen Daedaluss view of his nation and the House of worship that is such an integral facet of it (and, consequently, of life in general). The motif employs Stephen from his comparatively happy and innocent childhood, through the growing hardships of his early adolescence, for the final disillusionment of his youth. Every single instance can be paired with Stephens emotional response to Ireland and also to the Cathedral, his romance with every institution, and his feelings about life in particular.

The cow will be encountered on the very first page of the novel: Once upon a time and a very good period it was there was a moocow coming down over the road (7). This picture occurs early in Stephens life, and describes his first memories of his parents and the stories his father told him. This illustrates a moment when the leading man was a sloppy and cheerful child and knew little or no about the size of his nation or his religion, the moocow is, therefore , a symbol of his small , and peaceful place in Ireland, within a house having a story-telling daddy, a piano-playing mother, and Uncle Charles and Dante. However , whilst Stephen has not yet exposed the negative aspects of his homeland, the first sentence in your essay foreshadows his later finding. The moocow is decreasing the road, it could be assumed this road can be Stephens life, and he could be baby tuckoo, the boy that the cow is getting close to. While the cow seems to be a peaceful and delicate creature, because evidenced by the childish brand moocow, and Stephen is known as a nicens little boy, this will no longer be true when the two meet up with. The cow will become a stifling and risky force inside the boys existence, and the young man will become a brooding cynic who must abandon the cow to prevent being ruined by it. Joyce sets up this by certainly not finishing the storyplot, but only setting it up and letting it path off, recommending that the reader himself will discover its conclusion by examining the new.

Another encounter together with the cow motif occurs in Book two, when Stephen is back in his familys house near your vicinity. This is a moment in his lifestyle when he is usually beginning to appreciate more of the universe around him: he starts to accompany Granddad Charles in the errands, also to listen the moment Charles and his father go over worldly problems such as Irish politics. Nevertheless , he is not fully adult, and does not understand his life or his country completely. He fulfills a boy of his grow older named Aubrey Mills plus they begin to perform adventure game titles together, a boyish search that focuses on the fact that Stephen is still a child, accordingly, the deer he makes contact with remain seen in an optimistic light. The boys love driving inside the milkcar, and the cows look beautiful to Stephen during the summer sunlight. The moment September comes, however , Aubrey goes to school and Stephen stays house because his family can no longer afford Clongowes. Whilst Stephen is relieved never to have to come back to his disliked school, this individual begins to realize that all is not well: In a vague way he understood that his father was in problems and that this is the reason why he himself had not been sent back to Clongowes (64). Stephen posseses an idea that something happens to be wrong, but he have not attained a full grasp from the problem, and so his feelings about cows are merged. At one point, bovine and their milk revolt him, but at another he’s indifferent to them as well as thinks that the life of your milkman could be pleasant then, again, he can filled with dislike as a a sense of unsettlement comes over him. Something is incorrect, but this individual doesnt know very well what. His globe is broadening, but he does not find out where it truly is going and where it may need him. In the meantime, the cow seems to creep in the background, negative and positive, beautiful and revolting. Stephen does not really know what it or his your life will bring.

The following describes of the cow arise when Stephen has been lured back in Catholicism following his fall season with the Dublin prostitute. This individual goes on a spiritual retreat, where he hears fiery sermons coming from Father Arnall sermons that scare him into devotion for a short period of time. The initial night, nevertheless , after the clergyman makes just a short conversation and Sophie goes home, he has not yet been seized by fear, and feels simply lethargically depressed. He stands listless and dishonored, gazing out of darkened sight, helpless, perturbed and man for a boeotian god to stare after (111). When this may perfectly be the first level of Stephens plunge in to self-disgust and keenness for repentir, it may also be one of his first honest moments of doubt. The god that stares after him is definitely not yet referred to as powerful, or perhaps almighty, as he is after, but rather because bovine, a term that recalls the Biblical story of the worship of the Golden Calf. At this point, Stephens depression might be from his first suspicion that the allgewaltig religion which has such a solid hold on every aspect of his existence, from his family to his region to his school, may well in fact end up being false, a Golden Shaft that is simply an idol for the foolish to bow into. And even a great inkling of such an idea may be enough to depress Stephen just as much as an all-consuming threat of Eternal Damning.

The next day, Stephen is stepped headfirst in to consternation with the threatening sermon of the priest. It is a talk that has the power to make Sophie a highly sincere Catholic, even though for only a short time. Even in the midst of such a talk, however , a hint of what is to come in Stephens a lot more slipped in through the hidden use of the cow theme. When the birth of Jesus Christ is being described, the priest declares that Jesus was born within a poor cowhouse in Judea (118). Even though the priest is literally referring to the barn by which Jesus was born, in the symbolic scheme from the novel the cowhouse could really be Ireland. As the cow is used to symbolize the country of Stephens delivery and teenage life as well as the Chapel, the use of the term cowhouse for the place of Jesus labor and birth can be seen as a reference to Joyces and, of course , Stephens idea that the hypocritical and tyrannical entity this provides the Church belongs only in the filthy and confining Ireland in europe, represented by the cowhouse. This is certainly a fact that Stephen will eventually realize, thereby throwing off most effects of the terrifying rollo.

The very next time that the cow motif pops up is when Stephen has become thoroughly disillusioned with his faith and his country. He is right now a student at the University by Dublin, and is also regarded as a kind of maverick as they refuses to take pride in Ireland and turn a nationalist. His good friend Davin, a straightforward and meaningful young man who may be devoted to the nationalist trigger encourages Stevie to adjust and think of Ireland ahead of everything else that he ideals. Stephen the direct parallel between Ireland and bovine when he says, Ireland is usually an old plant that eats her farrow (203). Literally, Stephen is usually referring to a mother cow who feeds on her disabled calf, but figuratively Sophie is referring to the country of Ireland and the inclination of their leaders to destroy the individuals it creates if they will err. Particularly, Stephen can be citing the Churchs being rejected of Charles Parnell. Since the House of worship was a strong force in Irish existence and politics in Stephens time, the officials experienced tremendous capacity to build up or destroy nationwide figures. While Stephen gets older, the people near him laud Parnell intended for his leadership of nationalism, and Dante keeps a clean in her press to get him. When Parnell is located to have an affair with Kitty OShea, a married woman, he is denounced by the Church and, appropriately, by the majority of the spiritual Irish. When Stephen lies in the infirmary at Clongowes, he listens to the news of Parnells fatality. At his first mature meal, Sophie witnesses a fiery debate between his father and his friend, whom still support Parnell, and Dante, who agrees with the Churchs condemnation. Following Parnell passes away from fatigue and his job is destroyed by the oppressive forces with the Irish Chapel, Stephen maintains this image of Ireland being a land that may very well destroy the thing it creates. Stephen realizes that he him self, like Parnell and many others, is certainly much a creation of Ireland, and he confesses as much to Davin: This race which country which life made me (203). He knows as well that the fanatical faith that found hold of him and made him feel miserable and accountable for every action has the power to destroy him as a person, that the encouragement he received to become a priest of the Irish Church might have made his life lusterless and not bearable, and that the nationalism for the homeland has the power to damage his dreams for the future if he joins the cause. He does not desire to get farrow for the sow of eire, and thus this individual rejects the cow.

The cow motif arises again while Stephens artistic theory is being developed. When he speaks with Lynch, this individual asks, If a fellow hacking in fury by a block of solid wood make presently there an image of a cow, is that image a piece of fine art? (214). Whilst this is not a direct reference to the parallel between the cow and Ireland, it can be argued that the cow photo is tucked in below to compare Stephens eye-sight of his future because an designer with Irelands lack of conductivity to that purpose. When Stephen has his epiphany on the beach upon seeing the bird-like woman, he understands that his purpose anytime is to generate art the sort of art that glorifies beauty of humanity and earthly concerns, not of lofty and divine concepts like nation and faith. Since Stephen reaches this kind of epiphany after deciding that he can by no means be a Catholic priest, the epiphany is definitely his first step in seeing that he cannot be an specialist if he remains in Ireland. When he mentions a cow in the discussion of beauty, he is once again referring to an oppressive Ireland that will hardly ever allow him to flower as a great artist an idea that Lynch reinforces when he states, What do you imply by prating about magnificence and the thoughts in this miserable G-dforsaken area? No wonder the artist retired within or perhaps behind his handiwork following having perpetrated this country (215).

Among the last activities with the cow motif comes when Stephen meets his friend Cranly, who is examining a book permitted Diseases of the Ox. This kind of title can be fitting because it embodies Stephens final summary about Ireland: it is a diseased, dirty, and hypocritical area that he can no longer experience at home in, namely because he is certainly not devoted to their religion and has no sympathy for the main cause of its nationalism. For him, Ireland is usually not alert to any kind of improvement and weak because the men were not strong enough to resist English language rule, the region holds not any future pertaining to Stephen. Therefore, the ox or cow that is Ireland in europe is as figuratively diseased since the literal cattle in Cranlys book.

Faraway from the romantic fantasy thought by the foreigner, Joyces Ireland is a area infested with filth, fear, hypocrisy, and monotony, factors that are strengthened by the forceful hold of the Irish Catholic Church. Besides being a renegade work in it is use of a stream-of-consciousness style and its mighty themes, A Portrait with the Artist as a Young Man employs several motifs that add symbolic power to the entire message. The motif of the cow can be one that pops up numerous occasions throughout the story, symbolizing Ireland, the House of worship, and Stephens relationship to these two entities. It appears as being a happy nevertheless foreboding moocow in Stephens childhood, because an element motivating mixed emotions in his early adolescence, as a shadow of doubt during his come back to religion, so that as a symbol of hypocrisy, destruction, as well as the limitation of artistic purpose during his University times. Finally, Sophie realizes that Ireland can be rotten through and through, like the infected cattle in the friends book, and he abandons the land in his search for creative freedom.

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