Symbols in a portrait of the artist as a young man by James Joyce Symbols Water Color Daedalus Birds &Flight Fire Bridges Music Women Hostel

1. Symbols in A Portrait
Of The Artist As A
Young Man.
Submitted By:
Nawrin Akhtar
Notre Dame University
Bangladesh

2. Symbols
Symbol is using an object or action that
means something more than its literal
meaning.

3. Symbols
Water
Color
Daedalus
Birds
&Flight
FireBridges
Music
Women
Hostel

4. “Her image had passed into his soul
for ever and no word had broken the
holy silence of his ecstasy.”
The portrait of the artist as a young man
Water
Stephen’s nature and soul
Religious temptation
Final clarity
Stephen’s new life

5. Color (Maroon & Green)
Maroon ( Michel Davitt) & Green (Charls
Parnell)
Green – freedom & Maroon – Sacrifice of
bloodshed
 Political Conflict and opposition
 Opposites or opposing views (red and white)
Stephen wonders "which was right, to be for the green or for the
maroon."

6. Birds & Flight
Birds
 Freedom
 Inner movements in
Stephen's thoughts
 "Departure" or
"solitariness."
Flight
– Rise, hope, dreams,
redemption.
– Escape (religion, language,
nationality)
– Imagination and Stephen’s
upcoming flight into exile."What birds were they? –
Stephen Daedalus. (ch-5)

7. Women (Emma)
 Pure love
 Enlighten
 Inspiration
 Hope
 Ideal of feminine purity
Music
Search for things in his life.
The feeling of clarity about Stephen’s
life
The music passed in an instance….. It was a graved and
ordered and passionless life that awaited him, a life

8. Bridges
– Transitions and overcoming
obstacles
– Transitions from a religious life
Fire
– Wildness and Inability to control
something
– Stephen’s inner self
“ Flame on his cheek”
“He crossed the bridge over the stream of the Tolka and turned
his eyes coldly for an instant towards the faded blue shrine of
the blessed virgin” (Joyce 141)

9. Hostel
British
Hostel
England
Aristocrat
life
Irish
Hostel
Ireland
Middle
Class