In The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, we’ve seen a lot of developmental changes throughout Stephen. He starts off as a curious innocent child and eventually turns into a teen with raging-hormones who takes everything to the extreme. We’ve talked about the unhealthiness of his actions, and the music of Joyce’s narration throughout the book. However, one thing I picked up (and felt amused by) from our class discussion was Stephen’s journey through the seven sins and how that changes our perspective of him.
The seven sins include pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. We can easily see Stephen commit the sin of lust when he sleeps with a prostitute in chapter two: “He burned to appease the fierce longings of his heart before which everything else was idle and alien. He cared little that he was in mortal sin, that his life had grown to be a tissue of subterfuge and falsehood.” (pg. 105) From this blatant description of succumbing to lust, we can conclude he’s aware that he’s committing a sin. I’ll put it out there that I’m a little shocked that he’s sleeping with prostitutes at sixteen, however, I’ll argue Stephen’s list of sins starts way earlier.
I believe Stephen’s first sin was gluttony because he does everything in excess: We can see it during the infirmary when he vividly pictures his funeral. We reacted with laughter and viewed Stephen as a drama queen. If his development stopped there, I feel that we’d still view Stephen as the “charming religious kid,” however, Stephen takes pride in being the "lone" kid at the party. He also gluts at the idea of looking humble before the priest who “pandied” him. Stephen then starts experiencing wrath: Perhaps it stems from the laughter Stephen receives when his father hears about his meeting with Father Dolan – humiliation. He becomes cold with his family and envious that life isn’t going his way (thanks to moving from house to house). Stephen also broods at the fact he did nothing on the tram – angry at his inaction. At that point, some of us dismissed his behaviors as “classic teenager syndrome” or so to speak.
If we take it farther, I would say Stephen’s actions with the prize money he won was an act of greed. Instead of saving the money, Stephen exuberantly spent it on plays and squares of Vienna chocolate. Stephen also commits the sin of sloth because he time and time again waiting for some female to encounter him first – it’s why he “wanders.” While I can’t speak for others, I’m frustrated at Stephen’s behavior. I felt like, “Stephen should know better.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I grew up respecting morals more than Stephen, but maybe that’s my own arrogance showing through.
I find it hilarious that the entire time everyone on the outside views Stephen as this saint character: He appears as a goody-two-shoes. This doesn’t even cover any of the events from chapter three and four. Truthfully, I relate to Stephen’s internal struggles. I’ve been greedy before (Halloween is a glorious example), and I’ve also once believed I knew better than anyone – the classic teenager stereotype. Based on everything that’s happened, could growing-up just be a process of learning how to overcome the seven sins? His attempts at changing his behavior in chapter four seem promising despite how he’s going about it – physical self-punishment rather than mental resilience. We won’t know more until later, so I’m excited to see how Stephen will develop.
The seven sins include pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. We can easily see Stephen commit the sin of lust when he sleeps with a prostitute in chapter two: “He burned to appease the fierce longings of his heart before which everything else was idle and alien. He cared little that he was in mortal sin, that his life had grown to be a tissue of subterfuge and falsehood.” (pg. 105) From this blatant description of succumbing to lust, we can conclude he’s aware that he’s committing a sin. I’ll put it out there that I’m a little shocked that he’s sleeping with prostitutes at sixteen, however, I’ll argue Stephen’s list of sins starts way earlier.
I believe Stephen’s first sin was gluttony because he does everything in excess: We can see it during the infirmary when he vividly pictures his funeral. We reacted with laughter and viewed Stephen as a drama queen. If his development stopped there, I feel that we’d still view Stephen as the “charming religious kid,” however, Stephen takes pride in being the "lone" kid at the party. He also gluts at the idea of looking humble before the priest who “pandied” him. Stephen then starts experiencing wrath: Perhaps it stems from the laughter Stephen receives when his father hears about his meeting with Father Dolan – humiliation. He becomes cold with his family and envious that life isn’t going his way (thanks to moving from house to house). Stephen also broods at the fact he did nothing on the tram – angry at his inaction. At that point, some of us dismissed his behaviors as “classic teenager syndrome” or so to speak.
If we take it farther, I would say Stephen’s actions with the prize money he won was an act of greed. Instead of saving the money, Stephen exuberantly spent it on plays and squares of Vienna chocolate. Stephen also commits the sin of sloth because he time and time again waiting for some female to encounter him first – it’s why he “wanders.” While I can’t speak for others, I’m frustrated at Stephen’s behavior. I felt like, “Stephen should know better.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I grew up respecting morals more than Stephen, but maybe that’s my own arrogance showing through.
I find it hilarious that the entire time everyone on the outside views Stephen as this saint character: He appears as a goody-two-shoes. This doesn’t even cover any of the events from chapter three and four. Truthfully, I relate to Stephen’s internal struggles. I’ve been greedy before (Halloween is a glorious example), and I’ve also once believed I knew better than anyone – the classic teenager stereotype. Based on everything that’s happened, could growing-up just be a process of learning how to overcome the seven sins? His attempts at changing his behavior in chapter four seem promising despite how he’s going about it – physical self-punishment rather than mental resilience. We won’t know more until later, so I’m excited to see how Stephen will develop.
Wow, this is a really interesting way of looking at coming-of-age. From a more religious coming-of-age narrative, it does seem like this could be a story about learning to avoid the sins, and then reconciling an outward expression of piety with true inner faith. But I guess we just have to wait and see as you said.
ReplyDeleteThis post made me want (and not want) to think about my life in terms of the seven sins. I'm sure all of us could find an example for each within our lives. Nevertheless, I'm sure Stephen has more extreme examples of these sins than most people.
ReplyDeleteI really like your point about everyone viewing Stephen as a goody-two shoes from the outside. Sometimes while reading the book it's easy to get caught up in focusing on Stephen's sins because as the reader, we have access to what Stephen is thinking and the actions he does in secret (like sleeping with a prostitute). However, none of the other characters really know that much about Stephen's sins and therefore he's not defined by his sins to characters in the book.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a cool way of linking Stephen's actions to the seven deadly sins. I especially liked your line about how coming-of-age can be seen as a process of overcoming these deadly sins, and it makes so much sense. As we age, we learn learn what not to do by first making mistakes (or sinning, in Stephen's case). We see Stephen learning what not to do and struggling with ways to cope with his wrongdoings -- we make fun of him a lot but the kid has a lot of internal strife going on and relating it to the seven sins gives us some perspective.
ReplyDeleteThis makes a lot of sense. I think coming of age is learning in how to indulge all seven sins in moderation. Stephen's life when he's overindulging is deeply unhappy, but he's no better off abstaining from everything. This is true, I think, of all healthy adults.
ReplyDeleteI agree I think this book takes us through the seven deadly sins. The Catholic Church plays such an important role in his life that I do not think it is surprising that the chapters of the book follow the sins in the church.
ReplyDeleteI also noticed the many parallels to the seven deadly sins, especially considering how often Joyce uses the specific words of "wrath" or "greed" or "lust". Stephen succumbed to all seven of the sins, as you described, despite being seemingly a perfect student and future priest. I find it very interesting how steeped in religious symbolism Joyce's novel is, despite his constant critique of the Church.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting observations. I will admit that I find it hard to distinguish Stephen's actions between the various sins. It seems like a lot of his actions could be described by more than one of the sins. I wonder if Joyce intentionally brought in the aspect of the 7 deadly sins.
ReplyDeleteWith the religious aspect throughout the entire book, the connection to the 7 Deadly Sins being present in Stephen's Character even from such a young age is something I hadn't considered before, yet doesn't surprise me. One thing that interests me is the varying degrees of these sins and their correlation to Stephen's age. Like is thinking about being overly humble at the age of like 9 comparable to regularly engaging with prostitutes at the age of 16?
ReplyDeleteI thought your idea of how overcoming the seven deadly sins is a part of someone's coming of age was very interesting and aptly applied to Stephen's journey. Perhaps, Stephen's overemphasis on the seven deadly sins is a result of his religious background that might have been repressive. I wonder how the idea of the seven deadly sins tie into the comparisons of Stephen with Milton's Satan.
ReplyDelete