Stephen Dedalus is James Joyce’s literary alter ego, appearing as the protagonist and antihero of his first, semi-autobiographic novel of artistic existence, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), and as a major character in his 1922 novel Ulysses. Stephen mirrors many facets of Joyce’s own life and personality. Joyce was a talented singer, for example, and in Ulysses Leopold Bloom notes the excellence of Stephen’s tenor voice after hearing him sing Johannes Jeep’s song “Von der Sirenen Listigkeit”.
In Stephen Hero, an early version of A Portrait, Stephen’s surname is spelled “Daedalus,” a more obvious allusion to the mythological figure Daedalus, a brilliant artificer who constructed a pair of wings for himself and his son Icarus as a means of escaping the island of Crete, where they had been imprisoned by King Minos. Buck Mulligan makes reference to Stephen’s mythic namesake in Ulysses, telling him, “Your absurd name, an ancient Greek!” His surname also suggests his desire to “fly” above the constraints of religion, nationality, and politics in his development as an artist. Daedalus had been contracted by King Minos to build the Labyrinth in which he would imprison his wife’s son the Minotaur. Stephen’s surname may also reflect the labyrinthine quality of his developmental journey in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Stephen’s first name recalls the first Christian martyr. The theme of martyrdom runs throughout the novel.
Dedalus, Stephen. One of the three major characters of Ulysses. Stephen is a well-read, intensely intellectual writer and poet. The story of his early life is told in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, a thinly veiled autobiographical account of Joyce’s childhood and student years. At the close of the events in Portrait, Stephen heads off to Paris to pursue a career as a writer, but he is called back when his mother is on her deathbed. Stephen has renounced Catholicism and much of his loyalty to his family and Ireland in favor of pursuing his art.
TODOadd eps
1 Telemachus
Those who have read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, however, have followed Stephen from infancy through school to his young adulthood’s grand aspiration to “forge in the smithy of [his] soul the uncreated conscience of [his] race” (P 235). Called to a life of creative freedom beyond the encumbering “nets” of his family, his religion, and his nation, Stephen left Dublin in April 1902 and moved to Paris. His self-imposed exile was cut short about a year later when he was called home to say goodbye to his dying mother before her passing on June 26th, 1903. Nearly a year after her death, Stephen remains in Dublin, paralyzed by guilt, poverty, and frustration over his failure to realize his lofty ambitions. At this point, Stephen is more Icarus than Daedalus.
Buck’s nicknames
Note Buck’s repeated attempts to apply names and labels to Stephen in these opening pages: “Kinch,” “fearful jesuit,” “absurd,” “jejune jesuit,” “the bard,” “poor dogsbody,” “sinister,” “hyperborean,” “lovely mummer,” “impossible person,” and “insane.” Most of these labels are insults, and their quantity demonstrates the challenge of pinning down Stephen’s Protean character.
Quotes
1.637 A servant of two masters
- Protestant
- Pro land reform
- Literal opposite to Stephen
- Has a portrait of the King up in his office
- anit-semetic
- Headmaster of the school that Stephen teaches
Quotes
Link to originalI am a servant of two masters, Stephen said, an English and an Italian. … And a thid, Stepehn said, there is who wants me for odd jobs 1.637
1.743 Usurper
(1.743) Stephen calls Mulligan a “usurper.” Mirrors how Mulligan is like Claudius in Hamlet, Hamlet’s uncle who is vying for the throne.
Link to original
LIST
FROM #stephen