Interrelation among Art, Artist and Society in Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
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Abstract
This study analyzes A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man from the perspective of arts and aesthetics. Arts and aesthetic capture human pain, pleasure, beauty, sorrow and the entire human senses and help human beings be immortal in this universe. Value of art and aesthetic is very high in nature that Joyce projects through the mouthpiece of Stephen who struggle for arts and aesthetic for whole life. This study traces the agony of the artist and his struggle to free himself. Stephen by the end of the novel creates aesthetic discourse. The novel is replete with ideas on art, life and literature. Stephen, the protagonist of the novel, can be assumed as aesthetic tragic hero. For Stephen, art offers an escape from the constraints of religion, family, school, society and country. Stephen's obsession with aesthetic theory indicates that, for him, art is an abstract idea. Unlike the abstractions of religion, however, the abstractions of art are tied to the emotions with which Stephen struggles. Stephen's philosophy of shit provides a clear instance of escape from cruel social reality into the ultimate code comfort of ethical self-satisfaction and aesthetic self-indulgence. Drawing upon this study enumerates ideas from the relationship among art, artist and the society. It focuses on Stephen's enrollment in University College, where he gradually forms his aesthetic theory and Stephen's distancing of himself from his family, church, and nation. Moreover, Stephen struggles to decide whether he should by loyal to his family, his church, his nation, or his vocation as an artist.