The Hero and His Odyssey: An Archetypal Study of A Portrait of the Artist as a Yang man

Abstract

This research studies the central character of the novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce as an archetypal hero in accordance with the established hero trends or archetypes from the ancient hero cult available in the different classical and mythical works to the present. Mythical and archetypal methodology will be applied to study the odyssey of the hero passes through the archetypes of childhood, ordinary world, call for the adventures, reluctant to the call, mentors, initiation, trails, adversaries, apotheosis, seizure of sword and return with the elixir. The hero, Stephen Dedalus of the novel passes through these parameters to be an archetypal hero.