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Effects of Religious Education on Theme and Style of James Joyce's The Portrait of the Artist as a

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Effects of Religious Education on Theme and Style of James Joyce's The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Although Joyce rejected Catholic beliefs, the influence of his early training and education is pervasive in his work. The parallels between Biblical text and The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are abundant. As Cranly says to Stephen, "It is a curious thing, do you know, how your mind is supersaturated with the religion in which you say you disbelieve" (232).

The novel progresses in a way that seems Biblical in nature; thematically it compares with the creation and fall of man and/or Lucifer. In addition, the style is at times similar to Biblical text, using familiar rhythm, repetition, phrasing and imagery.

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He hears his father's voice and the words conjure up images in his child's mind of a cow and a little boy walking down the road. The words have the power to create. He hears the music of language in songs. The artist takes things literally from the beginning. "Words which he did not understand he said over and over to himself till he had learned them by heart: and through them he had glimpses of the real world about" (57).

Language is both symbolic and naturalistic to Joyce. Not only does language serve as symbols to communication and expression, but they have a concrete, physical presence. He hears them, feels them, sees them and reacts to them as separate entities apart from their symbolic value. The sounds of language are emphasized; the word suck sounds like water going down the hole in the basin (6); "the keys make a quick music, click, click, click, click" (16); the sound of gas burning is like a song (16). He writes, "For the words, so beautiful and sad, like music" (10).

He believes that words have power over him. When he struggles against the sensual temptation of sexual desire, words and images overpower him. "His recent monstrous reveries came thronging into his memory. They too had sprung up before him, suddenly and furiously, out of mere words" (85). The words that he must use to confess his sin are somehow more terrible than the action. "To say it in words? His soul, stifling and

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