Stephen has very little interaction with girls in this coming of age book. One of the most memorable interactions was with E.C. in chapter 2 at the party. It begins with Stephen being his usual antisocial self, hidden in a corner mysteriously watching the party go forth. Naturally, Stephen feels too sophisticated to take a social role in the party however a girl catches his eye, E.C. They exit the party and take a train ride together where they converse during the entire train ride. Stephen feels attracted to E.C.’s black stockings. He wonders if E.C. wants him to touch or kiss her. I think this shows the more social side of Stephen. As we see later on in chapter 5, Stephen doesn’t converse at all with the bird girl and instead just stares at her. At least in chapter 2, he has more normal social skills.
Another important interaction with girls for Stephen would be in chapter 2 when Stephen encounters the prostitute. Stephen seems a little reluctant and hesitant at first but eventually has sex with her. Stephen’s relationship with women becomes more complex as this section plays forth. He constantly refers to holy things with the prostitute and sees her as an image, not a human being. In my mind when reading this section, I felt like Stephen liked the idea of the prostitute, not the actual person. Even as he is tormented with sexual cravings, I get a sense that Stephen is more in it for the action instead of an actual connection with a person furthering his social inhibitions and isolation. Not only does this further Stephen’s social isolation, but it also furthers his artistic side by detaching himself from emotional reality.
The last major connection with women Stephen has is with the “bird girl” in chapter 4. This is a very weird but nicely written portion of the book. While I wasn’t sure what to make of this section, I did perceive Stephen’s growing sexual tension and artistic mind. As Stephen looks at the girl, he portrays and connects her physical appearance to a birdy imagery. Perceiving her as a bird gives off a total artistic vibe. One of the main ideas of being an artist included being detached from reality and social events which I think Stephen does a great deal of when talking about this girl. Not only does he not speak to her, Stephen flees the scene legitimately sprinting for his life. He gets so flushed and caught up in his feelings that he ends up being detached from human inhabitance. I think this is an important transition. From looking at the girl first as a bird then in the eye, Stephen winds up being totally alone in Ireland completely away from civilization. I think this significantly characterizes Stephen’s personal growth. Looking back at the end of chapter 1, Stephen is raised above his colleagues’ shoulders for doing something right. This could be connected to the part where Stephen makes eye contact with the bird girl, signalizing Stephen’s slight relationship with society. As Stephen runs away ending up in total solidarity, I feel as if this could be connected to when Stephen detaches himself from society every time he religiously messes up and forces himself to do inhumane things to himself. Although I know this is a really big stretch of a connection, I felt like the way Stephen reacts to the bird girl can be a condensed way of portraying how Stephen feels about society, women, or religion.
I agree that Stephen has seemed to have problems interacting with women throughout the book, and I think part of his problem is that he doesn't seem to realize that they might have feelings that he doesn't know about. In all three interactions with these women, he remains passive and lets them take the lead, but he is always imagining what they are thinking about and strangely it always coincides with his view of reality. Most notably, in the first scene you described when he is with E.C., he writes the poem as if they both shared this experience, even though he didn't even talk to her. Similarly in the scene with the bird girl, everything seemed fine from his point of view, but if you take a step back from Stephen's mind and think about what it looks like on the outside the scene look a little creepy.
ReplyDeleteAnd going along with everything you said: Stephen also does not want to see his relationship with the prostitute in any sort of financial or personal terms. To Stephen (through the narration of Joyce) the prostitute scene is this holy out-of-body experience that Stephen wants no physical (personal/monetary) memory of because of his underlying guilt.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Stephen has few interactions with women, and when he does they seem incredibly awkward. I think this is because he prefers the IDEA of women over the reality of them, preferring women to be on a special shelf in his mind than an important part of his life. This contributes to his weird and awkward interactions that you've discussed.
ReplyDeleteI think also the fact that his early schooling was, as far as I know, exclusively for boys, taught Stephen at a young age that girls are different than boys. He did not have the opportunities to develop friendships with them in his youth so when he started growing up, his emotions really confused him!
ReplyDeleteAhhh. The bird girl scene. An iconic section in literature and yet you can't help but notice how weird it is. I think that we're supposed to see how Stephen realizes that the beauty in the world is worth giving up his religion for. And that his sexuality is just a part of him being human. Yet, reading this from a 21st century perspective, as a woman, I am a little bothered by his few and dismal interactions with women. In his mind they are just supposed to come towards him, and he really just treats them as objects instead of people.
ReplyDeleteWhatever the limitations of Stephen's other attempts to interact with actual human females (and he *does* have some relatively smooth moments with Emma, although these tend to be mentioned in passing rather than narrated extensively--the *novel* for whatever reason leans toward the ambiguous/indecisive moments), in the scene with the "bird girl" it seems vital that he NOT talk to her or have any effort at real-life interaction. It's not a failure to engage that sends him running down the beach--it's the overwhelming feelings of his artistic epiphany driving him to embrace life! He engages with her from start to finish in purely symbolic/metaphorical terms, and this is an "artistic" encounter more than an erotically charged one. She's almost more bird than girl in his view, and her actual self has little to do with what he *makes* of her.
ReplyDeleteWe see a similar dynamic with Emma, but the issue there is that they actually DO know one another and have some kind of friendship--so his tendency to treat her as a symbol rather than a person is more problematic.