In The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, Stephen first takes pride in his acts of impurity. He begins viewing himself as a “badass” because of his double life of piosity at school and sinfulness at the whorehouse. Stephen Dedalus always strives to be the best, and now that he has sinned, he strives to become the best sinner. But this mindset completely changes after Stephen listens to the sermon delivered by Father Arnall. Stephen’s pride turns to complete fear as he believes that hell is now his destination. Stephen’s visions of hell turns to actual experiences; he feels as if his body is set on fire. He realizes that it is time to confess his sin.
When Stephen makes his way to the chapel, he immediately regrets it thinking that he wished it had been some other crime. “Had it been any terrible crime but that one sin! Had it been murder!”. This thought of Stephens immediately struck out to me. Stephen believed that his crime was so heinous that he wished he had instead killed a man. At first, I was shocked to hear it. Why would anyone rather kill someone? Obviously we believe that it is a worse crime to kill someone rather than to commit acts of impurity. But after looking at Stephens religious upbringing and the ideas of Catholicism, it makes sense for him to think this way. Impurity is a moral sin, and it seems to be even more stressed than murder (please note that I’m not an expert on Catholicism I only got this information from things I’ve read online so if any of what I say is wrong please tell me). Because of Catholicism's stress on impurity, Stephen must have been constantly reminded throughout his life how bad it was to commit the sin. So when he finally did what he was taught his whole life he shouldn’t have, he wished he had killed someone instead.
But this also made me think why he would commit such a big sin if he knew how bad it was. I think this goes back to his pride of being sinful. He was so caught up in his double life that he must have forgot how much he had sinned. He was finally reminded when he heard Father Arnall’s sermon, but by then he didn’t know what to do.
I noticed that too! I agree with you that it's quite shocking to hear that Stephen would rather commit murder than have sex with a prostitute. But I also agree that we can trace where this comes from- like you said, the Catholic church has probably hammered into Stephen's brain that all sex is bad and he will go to hell for it. Now that we've finished the book, maybe we can see this as Joyce critiquing the Catholic Church for its views and how it tries to scare people from engaging in those acts.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting to see the sudden change in Stephen. As you point out, Stephen switches from not caring about the weight of his sins to caring a lot over one sermon, and his reaction shows it all, even to the point that he would rather be a murderer than to commit these acts of impurity. I was also a little confused like you since Stephen should’ve known better to begin with, especially since he’s grown up in the church and purity is something that’s particularly emphasized.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how different cultures/religion will put one sin above another, how one is seen as "worse" than others. I feel like the majority of our generation and our culture doesn't see sex as something that deserves eternal damnation. But for those who are religious, this idea still might be present in their minds. Stephen does take his religion very seriously, which plays a huge part in how he views himself and his sins.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting how much Stephen is influenced by his environment. When he is in the protestant school, he is extremely religious and pious, but when he leaves he changes and becomes unreligious. He is also really extreme in all of his actions and never has a median view in anything.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I also think that part of the reason he sees his sins as so huge is because he continued to do them even though he knew it was wrong. If he had killed one person, however awful it is, he would have only sinned once. Impurity is a mortal sin as well, but his soul was multiplicatively "dirtied" by committing the sin so many times.
ReplyDeleteKathryn makes a good point: in Stephen's way of thinking (which has been almost entirely shaped by Catholic doctrine on this issue), the sin of lust isn't a bad choice he's made once and repents; it reflect *the way he is*. He sees himself as "monstrous and foul" for having these desires, and he feels like he has no power or strength to resist them. They seem to reflect on his essential (dirty) nature as a person, and his weakness morally, much more than a single rash act of anger or something.
ReplyDeleteStill, Joyce's irony is in high gear when he has young Stephen wishing he were a murderer instead: clearly these are NOT sins on an equal footing, and it's a critical reflection on the church that Stephen thinks he's the worst sinner of all time for what appear to be fairly commonplace urges that accompany adolescence.