a portrait of the artist as a young man review

He quibbles with his friends and plays the role of a pedantic teacher in a school play. He has been getting into a bit of trouble with teachers and friends for his faintly heretical essays. The book leaps over a few years once again now, Stephen is a high-achieving student at Belvedere, where he is known for his seriousness and studiousness.

They take the tram home together after a birthday party, and Stephen writes her a love poem. Soon, due to financial troubles, Stephen's family moves to Dublin, where Stephen becomes infatuated with a girl named Emma Clery. He spends a summer in Blackrock, exploring the neighborhood with his friend Aubrey, reading The Count of Monte Christo, and restlessly wandering the streets. Stephen complains to the rector, who takes Stephen's side, and Stephen is cheered by his schoolmates. A boy had broken his glasses, and a teacher beats him unjustly during one of his classes for sitting out. When he returns to school, he finds out to his bewilderment that two of his classmates were caught doing something sexual with upperclassmen. He listens to his family having a bitter argument about Parnell and the Catholic Church.

He wakes up with a cold the next day and spends some time in the infirmary, where he hears that the Irish nationalist Parnell has died.Ī few months later, Stephen comes home for the winter holidays. In the next scene, an older Stephen is in his first year of school at Clongowes he is playing outside with the other boys and longing for the warmth and peace of study hall. Stephen’s thoughts and memories careen wildly – from a woman that sells candy on the street, to his mother’s warm smell, to his governess Dante’s brushes, to his neighbor Eileen. The novel’s first scene shows an infant Stephen listening to his father’s nonsense fairy tale.

A portrait of the artist as a young man review