'I is another': Humanistic conception of identity and existential options in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

This paper aims at presenting and examining Joyce's first novel entitled A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man which introduces us to the life and artistry of Joyce himself. In addition to this, the special emphasis will be placed on the intellectual growth of the fictional counterpart of Joyce himself, Stephen Dedalus who, for the sake of embracing his true vocation as an artist guided by the unflinch­ing devotion to both truth and beauty, exiles himself from the stifling conventionality of his homeland - Ireland. Envisioning the culture of Ireland as imbued with a series of 'nets' embodied in nationality, church, and family which restrain the initial stimulus of his soul, Joyce's alter ego refuses to bow down before the authority of any institution other than the authority of his art. Much of this paper has been inspired by the work of humanist philosopher Erich Fromm, whose ideas have prompted me to view Joyce in the light of the great Humanist tradition focusing on man's innate capability of creating valid ethical criteria he/she is to live by.