To start off, I’d like to explain why I named my blog “Ageist.” I’m just going to throw it out there: I believe everyone is unconsciously ageist. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not an insult. Throughout this semester, I’m expecting a lot of society-built assumptions about age: It’s too young to do “blank,” or the character — cough, Stephen — acts like he’s an old man. The very first day of class was a discussion about what is the “coming-of-age” milestone. Ignoring other various factors like whether a person has literally lived under a rock and personality traits, I’m generally sticking my guns to twenty-five.
Taking all that into account, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man never explicitly says how old Stephen Daedalus is. We assume when he wets the bed, he’s a naïve child still learning to piece together his environment. Because he goes to “college” and the conversations seem immature, we think he’s about seven to ten years old. Later, we say Stephen has the soul of an old tormented man, but he’s just an edgy teenager trying to embrace the “brooding cool guy” vibe. Sometimes we laugh at Stephen’s dramatic attempts and experiences because we have a deeper understanding of what’s going on.
We’re almost halfway through this book and one thing sticks out to me: If I read this when I was younger, I could’ve mistaken Stephen for an adult. His inner monologue paints him as this posh character. His thoughts clearly show his cold and distant demeanor towards others including family (e.g Stephen refers to the kids at the party as “children”). We only know his age because of the social context — possibly personal experience too. Because of the general ageist viewpoint of our current century, we understand the stereotype of a growing teenager. We can understand Joyce’s novel unfold from different perspectives: as a fellow child and somewhat normal member of society.
This is true although we do not Stevens age we have made an assumption of what it is and we are judging Stevens thoughts and actions based on what we think his age is. We say he is too young to think this, say that, do this, etc. I think that maybe if we knew his age and if he was a bit older we would not judge him as harshly.
ReplyDeleteI also want to add to your point that we see Stephen's actions differently based on where he is in his life. If we had heard that he was broody and angsty later in his life, I could imagine some people not really laughing at it as much as we do now since he's in high school and we just assume he's still maturing. Same with the wetting the bed thing. Certain actions and personality traits are assigned to certain ages, some for understandable reasons, but sometimes if you take a step back it seems a little less logical.
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