James Joyce and Catholicism in Portrait and Dubliners

Joyce's Juxtaposition of Catholicism and Aesthetics James Joyce was a prolific Irish writer who wrote about Ireland and the troubles the people of Ireland faced. According to the Volume Library Encyclopedia, with Ireland being about 94 % Roman Catholic, religion is a motif brought forth prominently in Joyce's works. In Dubliners, his book of short stories as well as his supposed autobiography, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce shows religious turmoil and indecision through his characters. Stephen Dedalus, the main character in the journal-like story of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, goes through an internal turmoil of his own throughout the entire book on how he would view religion. He shows certain extremities of religious views during his life from being brought up as a Catholic. He finds that none of these are right for him and the only way he can truly live life to the fullest is to pursue a life of beauty and arts. In Dubliners, Joyce manifests members of the clergy and certain religious orders, who in some ways can be viewed as flawed and through this we can acquire an attempt by Joyce to show his possible distaste for religion of his time. Joyce shows the flaws of the Catholic religion through Stephen Dedalus in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and through the stories of Irish life in Dubliners despite the omnipresent and dominant Catholic presence in Ireland at the time. James Joyce is one of the most famous Irish writers of his time and his book Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is considered to be his auto-biography. Joyce, like Stephen, the main

character of the book, was born and raised in Ireland and went to a Jesuit school. During his schooling and his youth he remained a Catholic until he renounced his faith and the Catholic Church and moved out of Ireland to pursue his writing(Stewart F.i.m). Knowing Joyce's past and his views on the Catholic church make it easier to see the ways that he tries to