Before part two, many of the hints that suggested Stephen might be a closeted or unsure homosexual lay in unsubstantiated grounds, but I'm starting to find it very difficult to think of any identification that might be used to accurately describe him or explain away his many oddities.
When visiting his father's alma mater, Stephen notes the word 'foetus', an alternate spelling of fetus, carved into the desk, and he considers it one of many "monstrous images". Before this incident, he had always imagined that he alone suffered from a "brutish and individual malady of his own mind", revealing an oblivious nature for a young man of sixteen or eighteen. He reveals that he typically "sickens himself" when thinking of the same kind of topics. But what is so very 'disgusting' about a typical sexuality? He certainly suffered bullying in the past, when Heron tried to make him admit to some form of a hetero sexual experience with E-C-, so he ought to be aware that this kind of thought is normal? Is his unease because it deals with a fetus, which obviously not overtly sexual, only by implication?
Even the poem he earlier wrote for E-C-, modeled on Lord Byron's work and written for a girl, is a hint at some kind of homosexual tendencies. Heron and a few other boys viciously attack him for preferring Byron to Tennyson, yelling about Byron's "immorality", but I'd argue that this has little to with Byron's affair and more of a recognition by the other boys that something is unusual about Stephen that they don't like and want to change. After all, his teacher absolves him of any "heresy" and Stephen names a Cardinal as his favorite prose author. But they push him, searching for some defect which they can attack. Schoolboys probably wouldn't go out of their way to pick on a normal kid who miswrote a phrase, but if he was already queer in their eyes, they'd take the opportunity presented. It might be only a coincidence (although probably not) since Joyce loved Byron, but Lord Byron was a reputed to have a strange sexuality even outside of his affairs and many scholars today believe that he was likely bisexual. Therefore, it makes double sense that Stephen finds himself attracted to Byron's work.
And most obviously, Stephen's first sexual encounter with a prostitute was sweeter and less perverted than one might expect. He never objectifies her, cries upon the sight of her heaving bosom, became "strong and fearless and sure of himself when with her", and finally "surrenders" to her advances. The experience was more comforting and maternal than a deliberate attempt at physical pleasure. He could feel like a man with her in a way he couldn't with other women, including his own mother. It was a way of satisfying his psychological desire to be a man and, just once, act like other men.
If Stephen is not read in this way, I think we'll find it much more difficult to understand his idea of sexuality, and ultimately his entire character. Are there any other alternate theories that explain not only all of these strange thoughts and experiences, but all the others that pop up as well? Or does anyone think that all this is irrelevant?
For D-Day, January 27th
This might be something of a stretch, but is Joyce trying to tell us something very specific by using "foetus"? I do not mean that there are some budding feminists in the Irish community, that would be absurd, but I am wondering if there is a deeper meaning to it. Right off the bat, it is clearly a sexual reference explaining why Stephen would be so uncomfortable in reading it. But Joyce could have easily used any number of sexual terms, so there must be something important in his choice.
ReplyDeleteFirst I thought it could be that Stephen is disgusted, or at least uncomfortable, with the idea of procreation and the prerequisite sexual intercourse that causes said creation. This could point towards Stephen's potential homosexuality, but couldn't Joyce have used any term for male gentalia and arrived at the same destination?
Second, I thought that it was not meant sexually at all. This, from the outset, did not seem to make much sense but there had to be a reason he chose reproductive imagery over everything else. This line of thinking leads to the idea that Stephen may be afraid of the idea of brining a child into this world and raising it in the complex, broken society he lives in or it could refer to Stephen's less than rosy childhood. He may even see his early years as an insult to his newfound intellectual prowess. Bottom line, the word choice struck me as very confusing.