In James Joyce's works Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus searches for his own artistic identity by rejecting notions of paternity. He wants to establish an identity disconnected from any physical, spiritual, or national history. As an artist, Stephen must remove himself from preexisting identities in order to create his own. His rejection of father figures stems from his father's poor qualities and the harsh treatment by priests in school. Through questioning his own existence and denying various forms of paternal authority, Stephen attempts to become his own father and creator as he develops his identity and artistry.

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Stephen’s Artistic Identity: Paternity in Joyce’s Ulysses and Portrait
In both James Joyce’s works, Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man,
Stephen Dedalus searches for his own identity and labors to construct an identity for himself
through the rejection of paternity. Stephen’s rejection of paternity stems from his want to
establish for himself an identity that is not connected to any previous history: physical, spiritual,
or national. This rejection is also Stephen’s reaction to creating as an artist, for to fully be an
artist Stephen has to remove himself from previously created identities and form his own. In
removing himself and creating an identity that is not based on any predisposed paternity,
Stephen assumes the role of father as creator and he also attempts to become a father and, in
turn, a creator in his aspirations to be a poet. As a poet he would have agency as an author and
he would be a type of God-like creator. Stephen’s quest as a character is a search for an identity
that is of his own making and that has no connection to any previous paternity, be it physical,
spiritual, or national; this quest begins with Stephen’s question of existence.
The first instance that the question of existence and paternity is present is in chapter
one of Ulysses “Telemachus,” when Buck Mulligan likens Stephen to “Japhet in search of a
father!”(ch.1.ln.561). “Japhet” is in reference to a foundling searching for his father, or could
also be a religious reference to Japhet; the youngest of Noah’s sons, either reading fits the
description of Stephen for he is looking for both a physical and spiritual father (Gifford 14). The
statement is also connotative to Stephen’s search for a national paternity, or identity, because
in that sense he is also like a foundling searching for his father. Benjamin Boysen states in his
essay,” On The Spectral Presence Of The Predecessor In James Joyce– With Special Reference
To WilliamShakespeare,” that “The source or beginning—and hereby the answer to the

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question: who am I? – will always be wrapped in an obscurity . . . [which] results in a huge
degree of bondage and dependence upon the other, the predecessor and the past” (162).
Stephen’s existence relies heavily on any of his past predecessors, and he thinks that he needs
to escape them all in order to fulfill his full potential as a creator and form an identity that is
wholly his own. In his essay, "The Paternity Of James Joyce's Stephen Dedalus,” WilliamO.
Walcott states that “it is no accident that [Stephen] bears the name of that ancient Greek
artificer Daedalus who was the father of Icarus. Daedalus is the hero who escaped from the
labyrinth he constructed with wings fashioned by his own hands” (78). This suggests that
Stephen will do as his name alludes to and ‘fly’ away from all of his physical, spiritual, and
national histories, creating his own identity in the process.
In “Proteus,” chapter three of Ulysses Stephen’s questioning of existence and quest for
an identity continues when he states that he was “lugged. . . squealing into life. Creation from
nothing” (Ulysses, ch.3.ln.35). Stephen then states that he was “Wombed in sin darkness . . .
made not begotten. By them, the man with my voice and my eyes and a ghostwoman with
ashes on her breath” (Ulysses, ch.3.ln.45). These statements are confusing because the line
that states that Stephen was ‘created from nothing,’ implies a religious connotation to his
being. But, in Stephen’s statement that he was “made not begotten,” he implies that he was
sexually reproduced and made into being, for “the man with my voice and eyes” would be his
physical father and the “ghostwoman with ashes on her breath” would be his dead mother
(Ulysses, ch.3.ln.45). The fact that Stephen states that he was ‘made not begotten’ also
suggests that he was made in ‘wombed sin,’ and this links him to all of human history, from the
beginning of Adam and Eve. His statements link him to all of human history, physical, spiritual,

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and national; but to fully separate himself from this history seems an impossible defeat. In the
questioning of his own existence, Stephen is also severing any ties to his physical, spiritual, or
national paternity because he cannot hold or possess the weight of these histories and
simultaneous create an identity of his own making.
Stephen wants to disconnect from his physical paternity, represented by his biological
father, because fathers are only linked to children by one sexual act “An instant of blind rut”
(Ulysses, ch.9. ln.859). Stephen states that “The son unborn mars beauty: Born, he brings pain,
divides affection, increases car. He is a new male: his growth is his father’s decline his youth his
father’s envy, his friend his father’s enemy” (Ulysses, ch.9. ln.854-857). The son only causes the
father’s deterioration, and so, in turn, the father dislikes the son because he sees in him an
adversary and a image of his youth. In his essay, “On The Spectral Presence Of The Predecessor
In James Joyce– With Special Reference To WilliamShakespeare,” Benjamin Boysen states that
“the son is a rival whose strength and beauty awakes the envy of the father, who is only
reminded of his own progressing decline” and this is why “The only natural bond between
them” is only a ‘blind rut’ (163). Biological procreation ties Stephen to his father, but it does
not make Simon Dedalus any more than a sperm donor.
In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Johnny Cashman, a friend of Stephen’s father,
asks Stephen which were prettier, “Dublin girls or the Cork girls” (Portrait 82). Stephen’s father
states, “[Stephen’s] not that way built . . . He’s a levelheaded thinking boy who doesn’t bother
his head about that kind of nonsense” (Portrait 82). Cashman replies to Mr. Dedalus, “Then he’s
not his father’s son” (Portrait 82). This statement implies that Stephen is already not connected
to his father in his youth. This detachment continues as Stephen grows older because his father

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is an alcoholic and has ruined himself, and Stephen seems to feel betrayed that his father did
not live up to the full familial title of the word ‘father.’ In chapter IV of A Portrait, Stephen’s
family is presented in their destitution produced by his father. Stephen goes to his family home
to be informed by his younger siblings that his mother and father are out looking for another
house because they are about to be thrown out of their current home (Portrait 142-144).
Stephen’s relationship with his father is accurately described when Stephen’s father asks his
sister if “your lazy bitch of a bother gone out yet?” (Portrait 153). Yet, while there is tension in
the father and son relationship in A Portrait, in the beginning of Ulysses Stephen says to himself
“You’re your father’s son. I know the voice,” seemingly connecting him to his physical father
(ch.3. ln.36, 229). The destitution of Stephen’s family is extended into chapter ten, “Wandering
Rocks,” of Ulysses and so does Mr. Dedalus’s poor qualities as a father. For example, Stephen’s
father tells his sisters, “You’re like the rest of them . . . An insolent pack of little bitches since
your poor mother died” (Ulysses, ch.10.ln.681-682). Stephen’s father shows no affection or
fatherly concern for his children, and Stephen feels that there is no love between the two of
them. Because his father did not live up to his role as a father, Stephen denies his physical
paternity, contradictory to his statement that he is his “father’s son” (Ulysses, ch.3. ln.36, 229).
Stephen is disengaging himself from his personal and biological past, leaving room to create an
identity from scratch. As Boysen states, “Stephen is longing to create himself, independent of
the predecessors, the family, and history, like Adam and Eve, who were the products of ‘the
creation from nothing’” (165).
Stephen’s want to be ‘created from nothing’ leads him to attempt to become a creator
of a new self, and somewhat assume a personal religion. This assumption would deem him a

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type of ‘father’ and he would therefore have no need for any spiritual connection. In Dwight
Eddins “Ulysses: The Search for Logos,” Eddins states “Stephen’s obsession with fatherhood” is
“an obsession with the search for a logos,” that logos being an identity, such as the Catholic
identity (805). Eddins states that the logos of Catholicism "represent[s] unacceptable forms of
fatherhood” because Stephen must escape from incompetent and tyrannical systems in order
to create “a logos that subsumes [him], i.e., becoming one’s own father” (806). Stephen must
remove himself from the set logos in order to create a logos (or identity) for himself. Eddin’s
also states that Stephen is like Lucifer in chapter three of Ulysses because in rejecting the logos
of the Catholic Church Stephen “must begin at the beginning in replacing the logos that he has
denied” (808). So Stephen will have to work harder at establishing his own identity because he
will be creating from nothing in the hope of producing something akin to Adam and Eve.
In A Portrait, religion and the church are first presented as “unacceptable form[s] of
fatherhood” in the schoolrooms of Clongowes (Eddins 806). According to John Rickard in his
essay, “Stephen Dedalus Among School Children: The Schoolroom and the Riddle of Authority
in Ulysses,” the priests that instruct Stephen and his classmates are seen as “teachers, religious
figures, and ‘fathers,’” who, “possess a great and complex authority that both frightens and
dangers him” (18). This religious authority is seen as a destructive and paternal force that
Stephen renounces. The prefect of studies that is present at the beginning of Portrait is
presented as a teacher that possesses that authority that frightens Stephen so. He taunts the
boys with his exclamations of “Any lazy idle loafers that want flogging in this class?” (Portrait
42). The prefect then calls Fleming, Stephen’s classmate, “An idler” for writing “a bad Latin
theme” and disciplines himwith a pandybat across his outstretched palms (Portrait 43). The

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prefect then turns his disciplining hand on Stephen, who claims that Stephen broke his glasses
in order to be excused from schoolwork. Religion is not something that Stephen remembers
fondly as a young boy because he was treated harshly by supposed pious figures. Religion is
forced upon Stephen at Clongowes in such a way that it “buries itself like a virus in Stephen’s
mind, one that he can never quite shake off or ride himself of, no matter how he tries, and yet
he comes to believe as he grows up that he must distance himself from his teachers if he is ever
to be ‘free’” (Rickard 18).
It is ironic that in the beginning of Ulysses, Stephen does indeed become a teacher, yet
he seems ill-suited to it. By the end of A Portrait, “the school room at the university has become
a place of crude humor and disregard for authority” (Rickard 19). So at the beginning of
Ulysses, Stephen is portrayed as a teacher who has no authority in the classroomand Rickard
states that Stephen “has no taste for the role he is expected to play” (Rickard 22). This is
demonstrated by Stephen’s telling of the ghoststory in chapter two of Ulysses and the many
riddles that he tells his students, such as “The fox buring his grandmother under a hollybush”
(ch.2.ln.115). In his role as teacher, Stephen “is expected to enforce all the forms of authority
we might expect him to reject—the authority of the text, of the master,[and the authority] of
history” (Rickard 21). But even in his expected enforcement, he does not completely become an
authority of the classroom, to which Mr. Deasy, the headmaster, tells Stephen that “You were
not born to be a teacher, I think” to which Stephen replies” –A learner rather” (Ulysses,
ch.2.ln.402-403). Stephen cannot be like the teachers at Clongowes because if he were to do so
he would not be able to fulfill his want of creation as a pious figure of instruction; therefore, he
must become a learner. The priests that hold authority as teachers at the beginning of Portrait,

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and arguably at the beginning of Ulysses, seemto have “a gradually diminishing authority” by
the end of both novels which reflects Stephen’s growth of learning and his growth of creation
as an artist (Rickard 19). Stephen denies the church through denying the authority of the priests
as teachers, or paternal figures.
Stephen also denies the church in chapter four of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
when Stephen imagines himself in the priesthood, but rejects that Christian path because as he
states, “His destiny was to be elusive of social or religious orders” (Portrait 141). Stephen
cannot be a priest because he would then be a teacher, like those that he had previously
rejected. Stephen determines that “He was destined to learn his own wisdom apart from others
or to learn the wisdom of others himself wandering among the snares of the world” (Portrait
142). His path of ‘learner,’ as stated by Mr. Deasy in Ulysses, is Stephen’s own realization in A
Portrait. Stephen must fall, or escape, from the path of teacher in order to learn and create as
an artist. Stephen goes on the state that “The snares of the world were its ways of sin. He
would fall. He had not yet fallen but he would fall silently, in an instant. Not to fall was too
hard, too hard: and he felt the silent lapse of his soul, as it would be at some instant to come,
falling, falling but not yet fallen, still unfallen but about to fall” (Portrait 142). Stephen’s
continuous use of the word “fall” is of course an allusion to the fall of Adam and Eve. This “fall”
that Stephen feels will soon happen is his teetering walk along the bridge of denial that is
spiritual paternity. Stephen’s fall would be his denial of spiritual paternity, and to compare it to
the fall of Adam and Eve allows Stephen to make both falls of equal importance. Eugene M.
Waith states in his essay “The Calling of Stephen Dedalus” that Stephen’s fall from grace is
“assimilated into the preparations for flight—flight from Ireland and flight on the osier wings of

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Daedalus, the old artificer to whom Stephen prays in the last words of the novel” (257).
Stephen will assume the ability of his namesake in his fall and be able to completely disconnect
himself from religion and ascend to an identity of his own making.
Stephen also demonstrates his fall from grace when Haines, a friend of Stephen, asks
Stephen if he is “a believer in the narrow sense of the word. Creation from nothing and
miracles and a personal God” (Ulysses, ch.1.ln.611-613) to which Stephen replies, “There’s only
one sense of the word it seems to me” (Ulysses, ch.1.16,ln.614). This statement of Stephen’s
suggests that in order to “believe” one would have confidence in a higher power and therefore
there would not be any room for Stephen to believe in anything otherwise. This only furthers
why Stephen wants to disconnect from it, because he would have no room to create new ideas
and he would be restricted by the confines of religion. The denial of spiritual paternity, and
Stephen’s fall, continues when Mr. Deasy tells Stephen that “All human history moves towards
one great goal, the manifestation of God” (Ulysses, ch.2.ln.380-381). Stephen replies that God is
only “A shout in the street” (Ulysses, ch.2.ln.386) and that, “History . . . is a nightmare from
which I am trying to awake” (Ulysses, ch.2.ln.376). Stephen’s mock of God is sacrilegious
because he is comparing God to something as momentarily brief as “A shout it the street”
(Ulysses, ch.2.ln.386). And if God is only a ‘shout in the street’ then the fact that the whole of
human history is moving towards ‘the manifestation of God’ is a jest. And Stephen’s comment
that ““History . . . is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake” is his statement that implies
that he is trying to escape the confines of human history that vainly tries manifest God (Ulysses,
ch.2.ln.376). Stephen is trying, more than ever, to deny any spiritual connection.

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Stephen’s search for an identity continues with the question of nationalism, and what
will be called herein: national paternity. This question of national paternity is very closely
intertwined with religious, or spiritual, paternity. Nationalism first rears its head at the
Christmas dinner scene in A Portrait. According to the editor, John Paul Riquelme, of A Portrait,
“The Irishmen Michael Davitt (1846-1906) and Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891) were the
most influential nationalist political leaders in the 1880’s” (5,n.4). Parnell committed adultery
and was removed of his position as leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party in 1891 (Portrait
14,n.3). The removal of Parnell spikes a very heated debate in the Christmas dinner scene,
which involves Stephen’s family vehemently arguing for and against Parnell. Mr. Casey and Mr.
Dedalus are against Stephen’s Aunt Dante for her belief that Parnell was rightly removed from
his position. Even though Parnell committed adultery, Mr. Casey and Mr. Dedalus mourn the
loss of his leadership, to which Dante replies that the priests rightly removed him from his role.
She states that Parnell was “A traitor to his country! . . . A traitor, an adulterer! The priests were
right to abandon him. The priests were always the true friends of Ireland” (Portrait 33). Mr.
Dedalus exclaims that when Parnell “was down [the priests] turned on him to betray him and
rend him like rats in a sewer. Lowlived dogs!” (Portrait 29). Mr. Casey then informs Dante
exactly how the priests were never on the side of Ireland:
Didn’t the bishops of Ireland betray us in the time of the union when bishop
Lanigan presented and address of loyalty to the marquess Cornwallis? Didn’t the
bishops and priests sell the aspirations of this country in 1829 in return for
catholic emancipation? Didn’t they denounce the fenian movement from the
pulpit and in the confession box? (Portrait 33)

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Mr. Casey ends his rant with his statement, “No god for Ireland! . . . We have too much God in
Ireland, Away with God!” (Portrait 34). From the very beginning of the novel, such as this
Christmas dinner scene, young Stephen is subjected to nationalism and aware of it before he
can even understand what it exactly is. And its close connection with religion makes Stephen
wary of it, fore it also seems an “unacceptable form of fatherhood” (Eddins 806). In his essay,
“The Conscience of the Race,” Pericles Lewis states that:
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man tells the story of Stephen’s emergence
into consciousness as an entrance into Irish history. Political events that play a
crucial role in Stephen’s conception of his place in history, such as the fall of
Parnell, precede Stephen’s conscious understanding of Irish politics, and
Stephen’s attempts to understand such events are part of the novel’s drama.
(Lewis 452).
This drama unfolds in later chapters of A Portrait and eventually leads to Stephen’s denial of his
own national identity and past history, denying any claimthat it may have on him.
In chapter V of A Portrait, Stephen converses with many of his classmates after his
physics class at the university and in this conversation he also demonstrates his rejection of
nationalism and his rejection of his nation as a paternal father figure. Davin, a friend of
Stephen’s, questions Stephen’s denial of Irish nationalism, telling him “I can’t understand you . .
. I hear you talk against English literature. Now you talk against the Irish informers. What with
your name and your ideas . . . Are you Irish at all?” (Portrait 177). To this confrontation about
his denial, Stephen replies that “This race and this country and this life produced me . . . I shall
try to express myself as I am” (Portrait 178). In this statement, Stephen announces that no

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matter the fact that he is tied to Ireland by his father and his Irish heritage he will rise above
those constructs and create an identity that has no ties to anything else. Davin implores
Stephen, “Try to be one of us . . . In your heart you are an Irishman but your pride is too
powerful” (Portrait 178). But Stephen finds the idea of being Irish ridiculous and rejects any
historical past of Ireland as his own, “My ancestors threw off their language and took on
another . . . They allowed a handful of foreigners to subject them. Do you fancy I am going to
pay in my own life and person debts they made? What for?” (Portrait 178). In allowing their
own subjugation, Ireland has become like their English oppressors. Davin replies, “a man’s
country comes first. Ireland first, Stevie. You can be a poet or a mystic after” (Portrait 179).
Stephen then states in reply to Davin, “Do you know what Ireland is? . . . Ireland is the old sow
that eats her farrow” (Portrait 179). The image of Ireland as a country who eats its people is a
violent and hopeless image. To present Ireland as a nation that cares not for its people, but
what it can use its people for, is how Stephen thinks of Ireland. It is not a country that he looks
upon proudly, for it is an abuser. In Tracey Teets Schwarze’s essay “Silencing Stephen: Colonial
Pathologies in Victorian Dublin,” she states that “It is not England that is Ireland’s chief
betrayer; it is Ireland itself” (243). Stephen feels that in accepting and enforcing English rule,
Ireland is a betrayer unto itself. Stephen cannot accept a nation that betrays its own people as
a paternal figure, and he therefore denies it and any type of paternity from it. This denial is
also demonstrated throughout Ulysses.
In chapter one of Ulysses, “Telemachus,” Stephen, Buck, and Haines are eating breakfast
when the milkwoman appears. Stephen notices how this Irish milkwoman seems infatuated
with Haines and Buck, even though Haines is English and Buck condescendingly converses with

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her, and Stephen holds her in contempt for it. When she speaks, “Stephen listen[s] in scornful
silence. She bows her old head to a voice that speaks to her loudly, her bonesetter, her
medicineman: me she slights” Ulysses ch. 1.ln.418-419). To Stephen, the milkwoman
symbolizes Ireland accepting their conquered state under English rule and the milkwoman also
represents Ireland’s enforcement of English rule. Stephen describes her as being “A wandering
crone, lowly form of an immortal serving her conqueror and her gay betrayer” (Ulysses
ch.1.ln.405). The conqueror is Haines, as he is English and represents British imperialism, and
her betrayer is Buck, because he is a fellow Irishman that enforces British imperialism. Haines
proceeds to speak Gaelic to the old woman, who does not even recognize the language of her
country. As Schwarze points out “the milkwoman, whether or not she speaks Gaelic, [she]
certainly does speak English” which shows how the Irish have betrayed their own country in
allowing English to be the predominately spoken language (245). The milkwoman is accurately
described by Scwarze’s statement:
As Stephen Dedalus moves through the politically charged narratives of Portrait
and Ulysses, his encounters with the evolving Irish nation—as well as his
exclusion from its forms at every turn—reveal Joyce’s implicit condemnation of
these Irishmen (and women) who have recreated the very political and cultural
constructs that they would overthrow. (244)
Stephen finds at every turn a betrayer of Ireland, one who has recreated the political construct
that was enforced upon them. The milkwoman is a betrayer for she does not know her native
tongue and has become an enforcer of British Imperialism by speaking English. Stephen cannot
uphold this sentiment that is so expressed by people like the milkwoman, and this scene is

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another example of Stephen’s denial of Irish nationalism and national paternity. This continued
repeat of history, and continued enforcement by the Irish people of the constructs of the British
Empire is “Stephen’s entrapment in the nightmare of Irish history” (Lewis 453). In denying
national paternity and “living out of its logic,” he is able to become “the potential author of an
Irish national epic” (Lewis 453). As Rickard states, “Such is [Stephen’s] own perceived authority
at the end of A Portrait that he considers himself ready to become the author, not only of
himself, but of his country, to “forge in the smithy of [his] soul the uncreated conscience of [his]
race”(19). Stephen is ready to create a conscience of his people, and as a creator of a new
future history he will be a God-like creator and assume qualities of the same.
One answer to Stephen’s search for physical, spiritual, and national paternity lies in the
argument of his Shakespeare theory. In chapter nine of Ulysses, “Scylla and Charybdis,”
Stephen delivers his Shakespeare theory to a group of learned scholars, where he attempts to
prove in his presentation “by algebra that Hamlet’s grandson is Shakespeare’s grandfather and
that he himself is the ghost of his own father” (Ulysses, ch.15, ln. 555-557). Stephen begins his
presentation by demonstrating his extensive scholarship by quoting from classicalthinkers and
referencing Greek works, he states that “Aristotle was once Plato’s schoolboy” (Ulysses,
ch.9.ln.57). Stephen also mention, for example, that “Antisthenes, pupil of Gorgias . . . took the
palm of beauty from Kyrios Menelaus’ brooddam, Argive Helen, the wooden mare of Troy in
whom a score of heroes slept . . .” (Ulysses, ch.9. ln.621-624). These references to the classical
provide Stephen with a type of basis for progeny in which to assert himself as a creator via
artist, in that this theory is his alone in its creation.

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In his essay,” Art and Freedom: The Aesthetic of Ulysses,” S.L. Goldberg states that
“Even though Stephen’s theory seems a mere tour de force to his audience, it is a task of self-
understanding imposed on him by necessity” (45). His need to prove this theory comes from a
“need for explanation and understanding of his own situation. His theory is about Shakespeare
but it is also about himself, and all other artists, too” (Goldberg 45). Stephen is trying to prove
that in his denial of any paternity, he can assume God-like qualities as a creator of his self. His
Shakespeare theory is an explanation of that. In the essay, "The Stakes Of Stephen's Gambit In
"Scylla And Charybdis," Margot Norris states that Stephen’s “discourse is designed to display his
intellectual and critical merit and earn him the reward of admiration and support from a group
of well-respected Irish editors, authors, and intellectuals” (2). As well as explaining the ‘plight of
the Artist,’ it is Stephen’s chance of establishing himself as a creator with merit. But she also
states that this is Stephen’s own personal gambit that will either help establish his literary and
artistic career or severely stunt it. Either way, this gambit is Stephen’s attempt at establishing
himself as an artist and therefore creating an identity for himself through the performance of
his Shakespeare theory.
Stephen also examines paternity as fictitious within this theory when he states that
“Paternity may be a legal fiction” (Ulysses, ch.9. ln.844-845). Stephen continues this thought
when he states “Fatherhood, in the sense of conscious begetting, is unknown to man. It is a
mystical estate, an apostolic succession, from only begetter to begotten” (Ulysses, ch.9. ln.837-
839). It is fictitious and mythical in that “paternity can only be legitimate as fictive, artistic,
spiritual, and [as a] self-begot institution” (Boysen 174). It is in this way that Shakespeare is the
artist that is be-all and end-all because “He found in the world without as actual what was in his

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world within as possible,” in other words, he found a way to be the ultimate father (Ulysses,
ch.9.ln.1041-1042). Stephen also states:
if the father who has not a son be not a father can the son who has not a father
be a son? When Rutlandbaconsouthamptonshakespeare or another poet of the
same name . . . wrote Hamlet he was not the father of his own son merely, but
being no more a son, he was and felt himself the father of all his race, the father
of his own grandfather, the father of his unborn grandson who, by the same
token, never was born, for nature . . . abhors perfection. (Ulysses, ch.9.ln.865-
872)
Shakespeare has become a family all in himself, he is at once the grandfather, the father, and
the son, the ultimate progenitor in his creation. The character of Hamlet is also a reflection of
this as well, because “he is Shakespeare’s actual son and being Shakespeare’s creation, also
Shakespeare himself” (Goldberg 57). Shakespeare as supreme creator is most notably stated by
Stephen in chapter nine as: “After God Shakespeare has created most” (Ulysses, ch.9.ln.1028-
1029).
The idea of the paramount progenitor is further explored in the chapter nine when
Stephen mentions “Sabellius, the African, subtlest heresiarch of all the beasts of the filed, held
that the Father was Himself His own Son” (Ulysses, ch.9. ln.862-863). Boysen states that
“Sabellius . . . founded a heretical sect in the third century [that] claimed that the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit were nothing but different names or modes for the same thing, namely
God” (175). This idea is also termed the consubstantial father. Goldberg also discusses the
Sabellius theory stating that “The God-like self-knowledge of the artist, where knower and

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known are one and the same, permits the analogy with a greater relationship: the Father is His
Own Son” (57). Boysen continues to explain this theory with this statement:
The Son is nothing but a manifestation of the Father, and thus not different from
him, and there is no reason to perceive of the Holy Spirit as a separate Person
distinct from the Father or the Son. Likewise, Hamlet’s father’s apparition
cannot be seen as distinct from the father . . . or the son. (175)
In assuming all roles of the progenitor, Shakespeare has also assumed the roles of past,
present, and future. This is accurately described in the statement by Stephen: “We walk
through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows,
brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves” (Ulysses, ch.9. ln.1044-1046). Stephen also
states that “A father. . . battling against hopelessness, is a necessary evil” (Ulysses, ch.9. ln.828).
The father is necessary because without the father, the present would not exist. Stephen
suggests that Shakespeare was able to assume all roles of the father because his father died,
“and once freed from his temporal source of being” Shakespeare was able to create the
masterpiece of Hamlet. Goldberg states that, “To be ‘no more a son,’ as Shakespeare was
when he wrote Hamlet, means not merely that his own father was dead but that he no longer
stood in spiritual need of any man. He was himself a father” (Goldberg 59). Once Stephen is
able to live without the ‘spiritual need of any man,’ and lose the role of himself as a ‘son,’ then
he will have achieved the ability that Shakespeare did and become the all-being father. Once
Stephen disconnects himself from the order of predecessor of his father, then he will be able to
claimthe past, present, and future, and assume the role of supreme creator and father as an
artist.

17. Barnes 17
While Stephen does reject any form of paternity except that which he creates, Joyce
does seemto present Leopold Bloom as a type of father figure to Stephen, maybe as a different
answer than that of his Shakespeare theory to his quest of paternity. Leopold Bloom has no
connection to Stephen biologically or spiritually, as Bloom is in no relation to Stephen and
Bloom is Jewish and Stephen is Catholic. Because Bloom’s history seems to be lacking that
history which Stephen has tried so hard to escape, he appears to be the perfect substitute
paternal figure for Stephen. He can perhaps be Stephen’s guide in this quest as creator and
artist. In Ulysses, Bloom is referred to as the “unconquered hero,” which provides some
relationship to Stephen as he was the hero in Portrait that refused to be conquered by the
Church (Ulysses, ch.11. ln.341-342). A character in Ulysses, Lenehan, also states that Bloom is a
“cultured allroundman, Bloom is. . . He’s not one of your common or garden . . . you know . . .
There’s a touch of the artist about old Bloom” (Ulysses, ch.10. ln.581-583). This touch of the
artist is what also demonstrates a relationship with Stephen, for with this ‘touch of the artist’
perhaps Bloom can point Stephen in the right direction of creating his own artistry.
Joseph Valente states in his essay, "Stephen's "Allwombing Tomb": Mourning, Paternity,
And The Incorporation Of The Mother In Ulysses,” that “Bloom at once fulfills the model of
paternity that Stephen promulgates—a progenitor without natural or naturalized rapport” (22).
Valente also states that, “for Bloom to be a father in full, he must not only effect the symbolic
substitution positioning Stephen as his ‘son,’ he must also hand down the ability to do so,
thereby making Stephen his ‘heir’” (22). Because Bloom lost his son, Rudy, he is in search of a
replacement and he feels that Stephen best fulfills that spot as his heir. The father-like figure
that Bloom assumes is demonstrated in “Circe,” chapter fifteen of Ulysses when Bloom protects

18. Barnes 18
Stephen at the brothel and settles with the Madame over the chandelier that Stephen has
broke. Bloom has taken Stephen’s money to keep up with it, and at even takes care of his
property, telling Corny Kelleher, “No . . . I have his money and his hat here and stick” (Ulysses,
ch.15.ln.4893). It also occurs in “Eumaeus,” chapter sixteen of Ulysses when Bloom “spoke a
word of caution re the dangers of nighttown, women of ill fame and swell mobsmen” (ln.62-
64). Bloom also sees himself in Stephen with his youth and his ideals of becoming a creator as
an artist. He states, “He saw in a quick young male familiar form the predestination of a future”
(Ulysses, ch.17.ln.780). Bloom even talks of publishing Stephen’s poetry in “Ithaca” chapter
seventeen of Ulysses, thereby providing a way for Stephen to establish himself as an artist.
Bloom even names Stephen a “professor and author” as well (Ulysses,ch.17,ln.2270). This
would allow Bloom the role of father because Bloom is able to provide that which he could
never give to his dead son Rudy.
While Bloom hopes to help Stephen in his new role as father to son, in “Eumaeus,”the
sailor Murphy seems to squash that hope. Murphy is an epic character, as Bloom wishes and
hopes to be. Murphy has “circumnavigated a bit . . . [he] was in the Red Sea. [He] was in China
and North America and South America. [They] was chased by pirates one voyage” (Ulysses,
ch.16,ln.459-460). Murphy represents someone that Bloom can never be, and Stephen is totally
disinterested in his caretaker while Murphy is present. In not being able to fulfill these mythic
qualities, Bloom’s role as father begins to drastically decline. In chapter seventeen of Ulysses,
Bloom also states that he and Stephen are so different because they “individually represent . . .
The scientific. The artistic” (ln.559-560). It seems that while Bloom would appear to be the

19. Barnes 19
surrogate father to Stephen, he cannot possibly be because he is ultimately nothing like
Stephen and would not be able to further Stephen in his quest for paternity and identity.
In his quest for paternity, Stephen also tries to assume roles of the past, present, and
future and become as God-like as Shakespeare in his creation as an artist. In A Portrait,
Stephen seems to be on the verge of taking flight, as his namesake suggests, and becoming that
artist and creator that he so longs to be. Stephen tells his peer Davin in A Portrait of the Artist
as a Young Man, that “You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by
those nets” (Portrait 179). In creating, Stephen would assume his very own identity and ‘fly’ by
the physical, spiritual, and national nets. It is here, in A Portrait, that Stephen first completes
small works of poetry and seems to be on the right track of fulfilling his artistry. The
Shakespeare theory that Stephen presents in Ulysses is the only work that gives Stephen any
authorship and agency. It seems to present him as his own father because Stephen, as an
artist, is “trying to give birth to himself inasmuch as he is seeking to be his own progenitor or
father” (Boysen 162). While it seems that Joyce has set the stage for Stephen’s flight, it is left
unfulfilled at the end of Ulysses. Rickard states that in Ulysses “Stephen’s own authority as a
subject has been usurped, he fears, from every direction, so that he himself is subjected by the
powerful forces that surround him, the very nets he believed he would be able to ‘fly by’ at the
end of A Portrait” (20). These nets restrict him because Stephen cannot fully create and
identity that is separate from any kind of paternity, i.e. physical, spiritual, or national. In order
to transcend that boundary of his past history, Stephen has to navigate through to be able to
create a new and different identity. In not accepting his past and completely disregarding it,
Stephen is not able to completely become someone new and create himself from nothing.

20. Barnes 20
Benjamin Boysen points out that “the poet can create his own artistic existence” by returning
to, and “recalling the precursors” (161). Stephen can only “make a future for himself” when he
communicates “with the spectres of the past” (161). Boysen also states that:
A heritage is never something that is merely given; it is always an assignment.
That the poet is an heir does not mean that he has or receives something . . . but
rather that he primarily exists as heritage—whether he likes it or not. Of course,
to a certain degree, the poet is the produce of his generation, his country, and
his life circumstances, arbitrary as they may be. But he must . . . oppose the
assumption that the generation, the country, or his timely life produces him, as
he must strive in opposition to create himself against these determining factors.
(161)
Stephen rejects his father, and in "Stephen Dedalus's Non Serviam: Patriarchal And
Performative Failure In A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man," Alan Warren Friedman states
that “Stephen reacts with growing hostility to his father and all he represents, a reaction that
ultimately inhibits his growth as an artist since it negatively characterizes performance itself”
(65). In his denial of his father he stunts his ability to grow as an artist and creator. Instead of
creating “out of the freedom and power of his soul, as the great artificer whose name he bore,
a living thing, new and soaring and beautiful, impalpable, imperishable,” Stephen is not able to
fulfill this goal (Portrait 149). Stephen’s rejection and dislike of religion and nationalismalso
only allow him to be hindered by it instead of allowing him to grow away from it. It also seems
that his growth towards freedom is stunted in the spiritual and national paternity aspect.
Stephen can also not be the surrogate son to Bloom because Stephen wishes to escape the

21. Barnes 21
repetition of history while Bloom states that what matters is “history repeating itself with a
difference” (Ulysses, ch.16,ln.1525). Bloom understands that one cannot escape the past, but
do as Mr. Deasy terms Stephen, and ‘learn’ from it. According to Rickard, “Joyce demonstrates
that Stephen cannot begin to master his own destiny until he ceases being a slave to the past,
until he is able to confront his own past with authority”(32).
Viewing both Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man as a hero myth,
Stephen is on a quest for creation and in completing that quest would assume God-like abilities
as a progenitor in creating his artistic identity, but not basing it on physical, spiritual, or national
paternity. Stephen’s fulfillment of paternity, and his fulfillment of his quest for identity, are left
wanting at the end of Ulysses. It seems that it is perhaps foreshadowed when Buck Mulligan
states that “—Ten years . . . [Stephen] is going to write something in ten years” (Ulysses, ch.10.
ln.1089-1090). And this furthered shown when Mulligan states that Stephen “can never be a
poet. The joy of creation. . .” is then finished by Haines who calls it an “—Eternal punishment”
(Ulysses, ch.10. ln.1074-1-76). When Stephen’s quest that began in A Portrait was unfulfilled in
Ulysses, the quest became eternal in itself because it seems that Stephen will forever be
chasing paternity until he learns to grow from it and not reject it. In only accepting his past
could Stephen ever hope to ‘fly’ away from it.

22. Barnes 22
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23. Barnes 23
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