Ireland politics and its significance on Stephen Dedalus

“When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets”- Stephen

Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist of the semi autobiography of James Joyce’s The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, is a man made by the socio-political conditions of Ireland amalgamated by his indifferent perception.  Being born in Ireland of late 19^th century (a British colony) as the eldest sibling to a catholic family and having spent his life in poverty and destitution Stephen was burdened with certain expectations his society and family had for him. “Rebellion can occur when people feel to be oppressed or feel a need to stand out”. The social and political atmosphere of Ireland brought about the need or thought to rebel, to Stephen, “to break into a new system which ensures him the freedom to express his thoughts”.

The rise and fall of Parnell

The early 1900s was a turbulent time for Ireland, a time in which many groups and individuals were making pushes for an Independent Ireland. Joyce brings Irish politics in as a major theme for Stephen Dedalus to address. Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891) was an Irish landowner with very radical nationalist ideals. He was the founder and the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, who were in favor of home rule. Being a Protestant he was a great hope to reach a compromise with the Protestants in Britain.

However at the peak of his career he was accused of the most notorious repost about him, an affair with Mrs. O’Shea, the wife of William O’Shea who was one of Parnell’s party aides. He had in fact fathered three of her children. This completely ruined his career and made many of his followers against him. The Catholic Church also withdrew its support. “Parnell was incriminated in the suit and intimate details that were exposed became an embarrassment for all”. As a result, he was dismissed from the party and eventually in 1891 he died.

Stephen – as a child

Subsequently, let us proceed as a story and concentrate as to how political scenarios shaped Stephen’s character. Stephen, as a child often Idolizes or admonishes different characters in Ireland's political landscape. Among these revolutionaries was the IRB (Irish Republican Brotherhood) leader Charles Steward Parnell. Dante and Mr. Dedalus were also great supporters of Parnell, until before the scandal.  Stephen was highly influenced by them which made Parnell rise further in his eyes. In Clongowes, when Stephen was sick he heard people wailing on Parnell’s death. Frightened about death and preoccupied over his illness, he mixes his dream with the death of Parnell and starts forming verses of death and funeral. Everything blends together and “he begins to identify his plight with that of the rejected hero”. Accordingly he sees himself as a successor of Parnell.

Over his younger years, Stephen had this notion that all grownups only talk regarding politics. After Parnell’s scandal, when he was invited over to the Christmas dinner and the topic of discussion was politics and religion, he became aware of the fact that he was growing and it gave him immense pleasure thinking about this. The Christmas debate was regarding the intermixing of religion with politics. The argument between his father and Dante has an impact on Stephen especially when she tears off the green velvet back of the brush she kept for Parnell. Mr. Casey advocated that the church should not have any stake in the politics and the personal life of Parnell should not be involved in professional life. Dante on the other hand was a strong supporter of catholic religion and at the end of the discussion shouts “Devil out of hell! We won! We crushed him to death! Fiend”. Stephen is shocked on Dante’s this response. He realizes that his hero is against the present religion. At this moment he has attended Jesuit school and he is involved with strong religious beliefs. He knows that one should be wrong; Parnell or Dante; patriotism and his respect towards the Irish liberalist or Catholic Church and religious beliefs. But he does not find comfort in losing either. This is a beginning to his question and he eventually gets estranged with religion.

Analysis – 1^st part

Political debates presented in the book are examples of the political unrest. As historian claim that in Ireland it was not only a struggle among the nations, it was a theological one as well. “Institutionalized religious discrimination had long been used by the protestant British government as a means of division and control of Irish-Catholic population and this naturally trickled down into day to day hostility and resentment between Protestant and Catholic people in Ireland”. The effect of this Incident on Stephen is that he starts developing his first political ideas. Just because Dante doesn't like Parnell is no reason for him to have to give up his hero. Later when he gets punished by the Prefect for wrong reason he infers that the Priests were also not always correct. He slowly starts disbelieving in religion, as the Parnell’s scandal leaves everyone, including Stephen, in Ireland confused and directionless. Confused on the notion of religion and its reach into politics. This is the first sign of maturity that Stephen shows.

Ireland Nationalism and Stephen

An important feature of Irish nationalism from the late 19th century onwards has been a commitment to Gaelic Irish culture. A broad intellectual movement, calling itself the Celtic Revival grew up in the late 19th century largely initiated by artists and writers of Protestant or Anglo-Irish background who were concerned with furthering Ireland's individual native and cultural identity. Other organizations for promotion of the Irish language or the Gaelic Revival were the Gaelic League and later ‘Conradh na Gaeilge’. The Gaelic Athletic Association was also formed in this era to promote Gaelic football, hurling and Gaelic handball and forbade its members from playing English sports such as association football, rugby union and cricket. This Nationalist movement was very popular among the students in the university.
When in University, there was an aura of nationalism all around. There were Gaelic classes conducted and Stephen was encouraged to write in Gaelic. However Stephen’s approach was entirely different to the common thinking of promoting Irish culture. Once having a conversation with the Dean, Stephen has an experience that makes him think about English as an acquired language. When Stephen uses the word "tundish", referring to a funnel for adding oil to a lamp, the dean does not know the word, which Stephen concludes must be Irish. The dean's inability to understand Stephen's use of the word may seem like a minor detail, but it actually symbolizes the clash of cultures that is at the heart of the Irish experience. The dean is English, and represents to Stephen all the institutional power and prestige England has wielded throughout its colonial occupation of Ireland. The dean is thus a representative of cultural domination. By failing to understand Stephen's word—which is derived from Irish rather than English—the dean reminds us of the linguistic and cultural divide between England and Ireland. With sadness and despair, Stephen reflects that this divide may be unbridgeable. He realizes that English "will always be for me an acquired speech. I have not made or accepted its words. My voice holds them at bay."

Stephen in retaliation could, like all his friends chose to have started writing in Gaelic after inferring that English is a borrowed language. However he felt that for promoting Irish Nationalism it wasn’t necessary to revive the already dead Irish language or the folk tales. Had that been the case Joyce’s writing would include Irish folk tales. Rather Stephen believed that to promote oneness among Irish people the medium used was unimportant. So he could write in English and promote Nationalism.

When his friend Davin tells him that “man’s country comes first, Ireland first.” He replies “Do you know what Ireland is? Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow.” It is indeed the most biting and direct claim of Stephen about his country, and shows his anger towards the ‘Ireland of the time’. He never was as he proves from his actions, both Stephen and Joyce, tired of Ireland but he couldn’t tolerate the present situation which had nothing to do with Stephen’s interpretation of a country. He could not bear the political, theological and social conditions, in other words there is nothing left for him to be proud or pleased of.

Analysis – 2^nd part

The above paragraph mentions the Stephen’s interpretation of a country. This poses a question that what was the political Ideology of Stephen if he had any? Stephen indeed had political ideas. His Statement about Ireland and Gaelic language is itself a political statement. Stephen’s interpretation of a country was a society where freedom of an individual was not curtailed by the political or social conditions. In Ireland people, especially the youth, was expected to think on certain lines which were aimed to achieve an Irish Nation. Stephen as a writer was expected to write in Gaelic and most importantly write about Ireland. As the eldest son he was expected to earn for his poverty stricken family. He was all chained by such expectations which made him to rebel and fly.

As already mentioned it wasn’t the Ireland Stephen disliked rather it was Ireland of that time that he loathed. During that time many cities of Europe were bound with different political ideologies. London being the capital of Britain was ruling the world. London was against Ireland and people in there were expected to go far off places to rule for the crown. They were to preoccupied to think of art. Paris , on the other hand gave its people freedom, freedom which Joyce desired for. Paris hence became a natural choice for him to express his thoughts. Not living in Ireland never diminished his emotional connect with the country. This is the reason that Ireland always finds itself a prominent position in all his books.

 ‘Portrait of an Artist as a young man’ is more than a semi autobiographical novel of James Joyce, it is a part of the history of Ireland. It , not just for Stephen , depicts the attempt of Irish people to reach their independence, as well as their political mood of 1800’s. Not speaking about the life of Stephen or the stream of consciousness, rather speaking broadly the various stages of this book can easily be generalized to the Irish people as a whole at least for the part before Stephen goes to the University. 

Modernism: An Overview

The modernist movement refers to the period of anti-technological and nihilist works of diverse thinkers, writers and artists spanning from late nineteenth century to well into the twentieth; It mostly blossomed in the period between the two world wars, around 1914 to 1945. It arose as a revolt against Realism which believed that reality exists independent of the observers, and was marked by a strong and intentional break with tradition, including a reaction against established religious, political, and social views. It placed great emphasis on the subjective nature of reality, that is, ‘the world is created in the act of perceiving it’. This paradigm shift in thought and structure can be mainly attributed to a series of cultural shocks. The first of these great shocks was the WWI, which ravaged Europe from 1914 through 1918. At the time, it was looked upon with such ghastly horror that many people simply could not imagine what the world seemed to be plunging towards. The second was the rapid changes in technology which showed concepts and contraptions transcending the boundary from the imaginary to the real. All the horrific applications of these recent innovations they had witnessed in the WWI further led to a sense of disillusionment. With the advent of the industrial revolution and the subsequent breakdown of the work process, the sense of community began to disintegrate and the feeling of individualism grew. There was no connection with history or socio-religious institutions; the ‘modernist’ experience was that of alienation, loss, and despair. Modernists championed the individual and celebrated inner strength. They believed that life is unordered and started to concern themselves with the sub-conscious mind. Self-consciousness and self-awareness became more and more important as the general feeling of never truly grasping reality came into being. Everything began to be seen in a more abstract, unconventional and uncertain light. Since one could never have a complete sense of the absolute truth, writers and artists began to look at the world as a joint set of several fragmented parts, parts which they tried to explore through their work.

Modernism in Art

In keeping with the spirit of modernism, modern art was associated with art where the traditions of the past were not considered and experimentation with the form, functions and material was observed. A tendency towards abstraction was characteristic of this art. It began with the legacy of painters like Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, and Paul Gaugin, and can be said to begin with Post-Impressionism (1885-1905) which was distinctive by the use of vivid colours, thick application of paint, unique brush strokes, and real-life subject matter. The artists of this period were more inclined to emphasize geometric forms, to distort form for expressive effect, and to use unnatural or arbitrary colour. Cubism (1907-1915) was another sub-movement of modern art where the objects were broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form: instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicted the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Pablo Picasso made his first cubist paintings based on Cézanne's idea that all depiction of nature can be reduced to three solids: cube, sphere and cone. Often the surfaces intersected at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth. Another atypical feature was the background and object planes interpenetrating one another to create a shallow ambiguous space. Futurism (1909-1914) was a revolutionary Italian movement that celebrated modernity. They glorified and emphasized themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including industrialization, speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city, along with the speed, noise and energy of urban life. Surrealism (1924-1939) came next which was distinctive as a juxtaposition of objects that would typically not be together in a certain situation. It was essentially a fusion of elements of fantasy with elements of the modern world to form a kind of superior reality. Surrealists believed in the innocent eye, art created in the unconscious mind. They worked with psychology and fantastic visual techniques, basing art on memories, feelings, and dreams. Levitation, changing an object’s scale, transparency, and repetition was used to create a “typical” surrealist look. Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte were major proponents of this art form whose works have now attained cult following.

Modernism in Architecture

In essence, it implied ‘Form follows function’. As was the case everywhere else, it was a rebellion against traditional styles with little or no ornamentation. Factory-made parts and man-made materials such as metal and concrete were used. The emphasis was on function. There was simplicity and clarity of form, open-plan interiors, and absence of clutter. Another important feature was the presence of zoned areas where residential and commercial amenities were distinct and separate. Bauhausism, which lasted from 1919-1933, has come to represent the refinement of the Modern movement and the fundamentalist design ethic. In 1919, after the economy collapse in Germany due to the crushing war, architect Walter Gropius was appointed to head a new institution that would help rebuild the country and form a new social order. The Bauhaus Institution, thus formed, called for a new "rational" social housing, and was characterized by flat roofs, smooth facades, and cubic shapes. These architects rejected "bourgeois" details such as cornices, eaves, and decorative details as they were against ornamentation of any kind and wanted to use principles of Classical architecture in their most pure form.

Modernism in Music

Typical of that period, it was fuelled by the desire to “make it new”. It believed in the infiltration of music, that is, to reconstruct music on new modern terms which were more popular and accessible rather than the traditional esoteric ‘High Culture’ genres. The innovation in recording technology for production also played a significant role, as now it was possible to compose directly with the means of keeping time and to record or archive composition. The performance now was bigger, it was an event - Poème Symphonique (Ligeti, 1962) for 100 metronomes is an example where the piece required ten "performers", each for ten of the hundred metronomes. The metronomes were wound to their maximum extent and set to different speeds. As the metronomes wound down one after another and stopped, periodicity became noticeable in the sound, and individual metronomes could be more clearly distinguished.

Modernism in Literature

In broad terms, the era was marked by sudden and unexpected breaks with traditional ways of viewing and interacting with the world. In contrast to the Romantic world view, there was little concern for Nature, Being, or the overbearing structures of history, social norms and cultural values. In the place of progress and growth, the Modernists saw decay and a growing alienation of the individual. There was an underlying need to reflect upon the complexity of modern urban life and the machinery of modern society was perceived as impersonal, capitalist, and antagonistic to the artistic impulse. There was intentional distortion of shapes, and the rise of the non-linear narrative. Fragmentation, lack of conciseness, breaking down of the limitations of space and time, and disillusionment were some other prominent features.

This period also introduced the “unreliable” narrator which replaced the omniscient, trustworthy narrator that had been around for centuries, and readers were forced to question even the most basic assumptions about how the novel was to operate. James Joyce, in his novel Ulysses, puts forth a narrative where the events are really the happenings of the mind, the goal of which is to emphasize the strange routes of human consciousness. A whole new perspective came into being known as “stream of consciousness.” Novelists started looking inwards instead of looking at the outer world. TS Eliot’s The Waste Land is considered to be a definitive sample of Modernist literature. Biblical-sounding verse forms, sections that resemble prose more than poetry, occupation with self and inwardness, the loss of traditional structures, and a fluid nature to truth and knowledge are very prominent elements. These authors (Eliot, Joyce, Kafka) also heavily relied on classical allusions, dense and frequent references, in their works.

Modernist writers, including T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf lived and wrote in the capital cities of Europe, using the city as a source of inspiration, a research tool, and a setting for their literature. City living was conducive to the birth and rise of literary cliques, which encouraged development of new styles of writing. The Modernist view of the city tended towards a pessimistic sense of urban failure, and a mixed feeling of attraction and distaste is discernible in their writings. T.S. Eliot's poetry, PRUFROCK and Other Observations (1917), James Joyce's Dubliners (1914), and Virginia Woolf's The Waves (1931), all deal with the negative aspects of the city, and how it has led to the loss of a sense of community and purpose.

By WWII, the modernist thoughts had begun to fade away and artists of the newer generation pursued a more democratic, optimistic mode for poetry and the novel. Commercialism, publicity, and the popular audience were starting to be embraced instead of shunned. Alienation was redundant. However, this movement had indeed managed to produce a profound, radical change in the way people perceive truth and reality.