Term Papers on A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man: Conflicting Desires Within A Doctrine

Term Paper Title	A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man: Conflicting Desires Within A Doctrine
# of Words	818
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.27

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: Conflicting Desires within a Doctrine

        In the story, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, written by James
Joyce, the main character Stephen Dedalus has many encounters with women. Women
and sexuality are major influences on Stephen's adolescent life. Another major
factor that has an influence on Stephen's life is the Church. Women and
sexuality conflict with the Church and its beliefs, and that is one of Stephen's
major problems thus far. Stephen is having a very big identity crisis, from
being a God fearing Catholic to a very hormonal teenager.
        As Stephen sits at the "adults" dinner table for the first time, his
father, Mr. Casey and Dante are fighting about religion and politics in Ireland.
As they are arguing, Stephen's train of thought leads him to think about Eileen.
Eileen Vance was the little girl that Stephen wanted to marry when he was
younger. She is described to have ivory hands and golden hair, which confuses
Stephen with the phrases, "Tower of Ivory" and "House of Gold" which is part of
the Roman Catholic Litany of Our Lady. Later when Stephen is at school, he again
thinks about Eileen. Stephen gets his first sensual experience from Eileen when
she puts her hand into his pocket and touches his hand. Stephen gets quite
confused with the terms of the Litany of Our Lady so he starts to associate the
"Tower of Ivory" and "House of Gold" to Eileen. The way James Joyce describes
the scene, "She had put her hand into his pocket where his hand was and he had
felt how cool and thin and soft her hand was."(43) gives the reader the idea
that Stephen enjoyed the feeling. The only problem with Eileen was that she was
a Protestant and Stephen was a Catholic. Stephen also associates women with the
Virgin Mary, who was the mother of Jesus Christ. He thinks women as pure, just
as Mary was and since he already associated the "Tower of Ivory" and "House of
Gold" with Eileen, he assumes her to be like the Virgin.
        Another influence of women in Stephen's life comes from the story "The
Count of Monte Cristo" while reading this story, Stephen starts to fantasize
about Mercedes. As he fantasizes, he tries to bring her to life through another
girl, known as E.C.. He has many sexual longings for E.C. but can not understand
and is frustrated by his feelings. Knowing that his thoughts and his actions
"perhaps he had been masturbating"  p...

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