Verified Document

Youth: A Portrait Of The Artist As Term Paper

¶ … Youth: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man In James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the main character Stephen says that great art carries the qualities of Wholeness, Harmony, and Radiance. Yet Stephen is making this statement as an adolescent, one who is not yet whole nor harmonious, but one who is still developing and adapting to himself and his world. As literary art, the problem this leads to is how an adult reader can create an adolescent character honestly, a character less developed then they are. The reader then has the same challenge, to read about this character and judge them on who they are, without directing their own biases on the character. The writer and the reader can both be guilty of viewing the adolescent character either condescendingly or sentimentally. As well as this, the writer and reader either creating or reading about the adolescent character tend to be overwhelmed by the yearning for lost youth, rather than focusing on the character themselves. These are biases that impact on how...

Yet, a good writer is capable of creating powerful literary works with adolescent characters and can use a number of methods to achieve the intended effect. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a good example of a novel that qualifies as literary art, with the author using various techniques to avoid the dangers associated with the adolescent character. There are three main methods used to achieve this. Firstly, that the book is written in first person and narrated by the adolescent character. Secondly, that how the narrator speaks is linked directly to his inner state of mind and thirdly, that it is an honest account of the journey of youth.
Firstly, the adolescent narrating the story is important in keeping the adult point-of-view out of the story. An adult voice looking back at youth, or a third person account would be more likely to incorporate the author's own perspective on the youth and so have the yearning for lost youth feel. For the reader also, this first person narration emerges them in the world as the youth sees it, not in the world as they see it. Reminding the reader of how the adolescent sees the world does not allow the reader to place their own biases on the understanding of the story. Instead of the…

Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Portrait of an Artist
Words: 831 Length: 2 Document Type: Essay

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man tells the story of Stephen Dedalus as he grows from an introspective and conscious young man into a rebellious and disaffected adult. For much of the novel, young Stephen is trying to figure out exactly who he is and what it is that he values in life. It is a stream-of-consciousness story

Artist Peter Paul Rubens the
Words: 379 Length: 1 Document Type: Essay

Rubens's personal contribution to the over 2,000 works produced by this studio varied considerably from work to work" (Pioch 2002). The studio acted as a kind of de facto academy for many young artists who served as Reuben's assistants, including Anthony van Dyck. Rubens has been called, in contrast to the inward-looking Dutch depicters of scenes of private, interior life, a 'public' painter, a status underlined by his equally impressive

Van Gogh's "Self-Portrait With a Straw Hat"
Words: 1041 Length: 3 Document Type: Essay

Van Gogh's "Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat" (1887) With an oeuvre of over 2000 works Van Gogh's artistic passion matched the intensity of his religious fervor. Religion and art were, essentially, the basis of Van Gogh's life. And the history of his life is, in a way, a history of modern Europe; in another way it is a history of the prelude to 20th century modern art; and in another way

Visual Arts Andy Warhol's "Self-Portrait
Words: 1767 Length: 6 Document Type: Term Paper

Both men had significant events in their lives which made them change their art style almost 180 degrees from work that was similar to others to work that is most definitely their own. There has not yet been enough time passed to tell who will have the greater heritage. One would think that Warhol would be the less likely to be remembered as a true artist, simply because he

Paintings, Colors and Self-Portrait Introduction
Words: 14235 Length: 50 Document Type: Research Proposal

Pissarro took a special interest in his attempts at painting, emphasizing that he should 'look for the nature that suits your temperament', and in 1876 Gauguin had a landscape in the style of Pissarro accepted at the Salon. In the meantime Pissarro had introduced him to Cezanne, for whose works he conceived a great respect-so much so that the older man began to fear that he would steal his

Otto Dix: A Portrait of
Words: 2213 Length: 8 Document Type: Essay

). Indeed, when Dix exhibited Der Krieg in Berlin in 1924, he was criticized by the right wing press and eventually when Hitler came into power in 1933, Dix was fired based upon pressure from Hitler's government that contended that his paintings were antimilitary. According to Dix's dismissal letter from the Dresden Academy, his artwork "threatened to sap the will of the German people to defend themselves." To add insult

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now