A Kiss in the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

In the book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the author James Joyce suggests that when a boy grows into a man, he must confront the moral attacks that are unleashed upon him and set himself free from the maternal cuffs chained to him in order to pursue his art. Life is not easy for Stephen Dedalus who is growing up in Ireland near the end of the 17th century. His family has money and they send him to a nice boarding school where he is away from his family, reuniting with them only during the holidays. There, in the stone halls of the school, Stephen Dedalus is forced to grow up without the guidance of his mother and father and mature into a young man. He is bullied and teased and he makes friends and meets new people.

Everything starts with the contemplation of a kiss. What is a kiss? A kiss is the joining together of two peoples faces and the sound that comes from there vibrations. That is a kiss. But to Stephen it does not seem like much. He and his mother kiss all the time when he is home. There has got to be more to it.

You put your face up like that to say goodnight and then his mother put her face down. That was to kiss. His mother put her lips on his cheek; her lips were soft and they wetted his cheek; and they made a tiny little noise: kiss. Why did people do that with their two faces? (Joyce p. 27)

The kiss between a mother and her son is not just a kiss where there is no feeling behind the action. The love between a mother and her son is evident and subconsciously exchanged between the kisser and the kissed. It is just like when a mother is pregnant with her child. The food that the mother consumes is subconsciously fed to the baby inside her womb carried in through the umbilical cord. The baby is nourished, depending on what is consumed and it grows into a child all while the mother and father get ready for it to come out so they can pour all of their love unto it.

When the actual baby comes out, the mother kisses the baby, as a sign of her undying love and affection for what she helped to create. In the book, Stephen has just left his home for the academic quality of his boarding school. No longer is he under the shelter provided by his mother and father. One day at school, he is mocked by his peers for kissing his mother and he forced to figure out for what reason this would be worth mocking. Why, if he has been kissing his mother for his whole life without consequence, must he now endure the ridicule that is coming from his fellow classmates over a kiss?

Joyce begins his passage with a question. It sparks a conversation that has Stephen questioning the kissing of his mother; whether it was right or wrong. The bully, Wells, says “Tell us, Dedalus, do you kiss your mother every night before you go to bed,” (p. 26) with an ending that seems to mock the action of one kissing their mother. Now, Stephen is thinking that it would be foolish for him to answer yes because why else would Wells ask him such a question if he did not know the answer already? The question was asked because Wells knew the answer that Stephen was ready to give. Stephen answers “I do,” (p. 26) and Wells has a field day, turning to the other boys and enlightening them with the news that Stephen does give his mother a kiss every night before he goes to bed. As if to further degrade Stephen and show his utter feeling of embarrassment Joyce writes, “Stephen blushed under their eyes…” (p. 27) setting a scene where it is obvious that he is helpless and embarrassed among this group of boys who are tearing him apart and laughing at his admittance to the kissing of his mother. Stephen is not able to meet their eyes; they have too much power over him at the moment. In an effort to regain his standing among his peers Stephen suddenly rejects the love of his mother and says, “I do not.” (p. 27) All of the years that Stephen’s mother has spent raising her child have now been rejected for the sole purpose of redemption among the teenagers of her son’s class. But, Joyce chooses to not let Stephen have his way almost as punishment for the rejection of his mother. Wells laughs and again, turns to his fellow classmates and says “O, I say, here’s a fellow says he doesn’t kiss his mother before he goes to bed.” (p. 27) and then all of the boys laugh again.

In this part of the passage, Joyce brings up a burning question. Is it right to kiss one’s mother? What is the answer to Wells’ question that will not bring about roaring laughter? In a fit of blushing confusion, Stephen is caught rationalizing about a question that although simple on the surface is actually complex in all of its potential meanings. Joyce writes, “[Stephen] had given two [answers] and still Wells laughed.” (p. 27) Stephen’s first answer to the question was yes and the boys laughed because kissing your mother to them means showing her the love and affection that you have for her. In a way all this can be connected to the Oedipus complex which simply states that all men have subconscious attractions to their mothers. This is repulsive to the boys and to their standards they find it funny that Stephen has no idea that he is committing the utterly repulsive act of kissing his mother on the cheek every night before he goes to bed, the same way he would kiss a lover.

On the other hand, Stephen has also answered no. Why would the boys laugh to the only two possible answers of a seemingly simple question; what about Stephen not kissing his mother is funny? Joyce sets up this paradox in which the act of kissing was once accepted but now shamed upon by the parties. The boys now laugh at Stephen’s rejection of the kissing of his mother. They laugh because all the boys kiss their mother and it is interpreted by them as wrong at the moment of Stephen’s answer to not kiss his mother because she is the one who nurtures and provides love and warmth and all of the things that feel good to a child. It is sign of love and gratitude to kiss and a mother should be kissed.

Further down the passage, Joyce writes another important line that ties into the whole idea of a kiss and the warmth and comfort that a mother provides to her child. “The cold slime of the ditch covered his whole body; and, when the bell rang for study and the lines filed out of the playrooms, he felt the cold air of the corridor and the staircase inside his clothes.” (p. 27) Again, Joyce’s subtlety adds to the discussion of whether or not one should kiss their mother. Here is Stephen who had just been pushed into a cold, muddy ditch the day before this argument and he is recalling the feeling of the slimy mud and the impact that it had on him. Joyce describes the mud of the ditch as “cold slime,” (p. 27) and it can easily resemble the birth of a baby and the air making the slimy baby feel cold because it has left the warm and comforting womb of the mother.

With Joyce’s language Stephen can be seen as a child again and not a young teenager because he is longing for the love and comfort, once offered to him when living with his parents, that has been taken away from him at his boarding school by the bullying group of kids. Stephen feels alone among peers that mock the differences among themselves and it is killing Stephen inside, this burning question of what a kiss really meant.

Joyce sets up Stephen’s thoughts as he slowly makes connections in his mind, “What did it mean, to kiss?” (p. 27) Stephen tries to justify his kissing of his mother and the first answer that he had given to the boys. There is no reason for them to laugh at his first answer because they all laughed when Stephen answered the opposite in a feeling a desperation to be accepted. Joyce then writes:

Sitting in the studyhall he opened the lid of his desk and changed the number pasted up inside from seventyseven to seventysix. But the Christmas vacation was very far away: but one time it would come because the earth moved round always. (p. 27)

This last part of the passage helps to put into physicality the longing for a mother’s warmth and comfort that Stephen so dearly wishes to feel again. He counts down the days until vacation when he will be able to kiss his mother again and feel the love.

Now home, Stephen has matured from being away from his parents. He is attending the birthday party of one of his childhood friends and feels out of place because he is a mature teen in a young boy’s body. There is laughter and noisemakers and all of the kids are having fun. Stephen, on the other hand, is in the corner. He tries to partake in the laughter and fun but feels that he is too unhappy to take part in the festivities.

But, there is a girl at the party that catches Stephen’s attention when “her glances travelled to his corner, flattering, taunting, searching, exciting his heart,” (p. 72) Joyce uses all of these verbs to personify the glances that this teenage girl is sending over to Stephen in his little corner of the party. The verbs help to illustrate the feelings that Stephen is getting when he is aroused by her glances. The glances are “flattering” because they describe the emotions and excitement that Stephen’s heart feels when she has spotted him. She continues to send over her glances while playing with her friends. The glances taunt as well because Stephen wants to go over and find out what is so intriguing about this girl who seems to be obsessing with her eyes over him in his corner. And the fact that Joyce chooses to say that her glances are “exciting his heart helps to reinforce that Stephen is feeling something familiar like the love he feels from his mother.

Joyce uses personification to describe the girl’s actions and her every move. The “sprays of her fresh warm breath flew gaily above her cowled head and her shoes tapped blithely on the glassy road,” (p. 72) and were given life which almost sets up this girl as a life-giving entity where life protrudes from her body, almost like a mother who is giving birth to a child.

The reason for Stephen’s intrigue with this girl may be her overwhelmingly motherly aura about her. She gives him attention that no one else really gives to him during the party except for when he is at home with his mother. Her glances are the reasons why they leave the party and catch the last tram home together.

In the next couple of paragraphs of the passage, Joyce chooses to describe the feelings that Stephen gets when he is on the steps of the tram speaking with the girl instead of the actual dialogue of the conversation that would be happening because it subtlety allows Stephen’s real reasons for his attraction to this girl surface.

Throughout the passage, Joyce uses “his heart danced,” (p. 73) and “his dancing heart,” as a way to show that Stephen is aroused by this girl who seems to be attracted to him as well because during their conversation “she came up to his step many times and went down to hers again between their phrases and once or twice stood close beside him for some moments on the upper step, forgetting to go down, and then went down,” (p. 73) almost in a way involved with him that she keeps forgetting what she is in the middle of doing.

But, Joyce’s use of “dancing heart” and not a beating heart or a warm heart shows that Stephen is aroused by her presence. Dancing can be sexual at times and the connection can be made that he is being sexually aroused by this girl inadvertently. Stephen is a young man and his hormones are at times uncontrollable and get the best of him. He does not have “feelings” for the girl; Stephen lusts after her and that is why Joyce has chosen to use the phrase, “his dancing heart.” (p. 73)

In the next paragraph of the passage there is a shift to a dreamlike state where Stephen fantasizes about taking hold or “catching hold of her,” (p. 73) so that he can unleash the lust that is trying to break out of him. During Stephen’s fantasy, he envisions himself grabbing hold of her the next time she comes to his step and kissing her. In one of the sentences describing Stephen’s fantasy, Joyce chooses to add “nobody is looking,” (p. 73) Why should it matter if nobody was looking? Does Joyce want to shine light on the fact that it would be wrong for Stephen to kiss this little girl? Or is it the fact that Stephen has the urge to kiss this girl that is wrong.

Going back to the idea that a kiss is something that a mother and her child share together in a sign of love and affection, the girl that Stephen is on the train with is not his mother. She may conduct herself in a way that is similar to Stephen’s mother but she is too young to provide all the necessities of life to him.

Stephen is only lusting after her and is physically attracted to her being and so that is why Joyce writes his next paragraph. “But he did neither: and, when he was sitting alone in the deserted tram, he tore his ticket into shreds and stared gloomily at the corrugated footboard.” (p. 73) Why was Stephen angry? Because Joyce wanted to show the wrong in thinking that this girl that he met at the birthday party was worthy of a kiss that represents love and affection. A kiss that is reserved solely for his mother and the people that deserved it; people that not only showed the qualities that were found in his mother but also exemplified those motherly traits as well.

In the end, Stephen does not kiss the girl and he is upset because his body is changing and as it changes there are forces telling him that something has to take place. He cannot show love to any woman besides his mother but his body will soon change his feelings about who he sees as a mother.

In the last passage chosen to show Stephen’s evolution throughout the story, Joyce describes Stephen’s adventures into the Red Light District of Dublin, Ireland. In this part of the story he is enjoying more and more freedom as he is growing older into a man and his family and their monetary matters has loosened the grip that they once had upon him. This grip that was once on Stephen has now been lifted and Stephen is exposed to moral conflicts during which he must make decisions using his sole judgment.

In the beginning of the passage, Joyce starts off by writing “He had wandered into a maze of narrow and dirty streets,” (p. 98) almost as if Joyce was trying to show that Stephen is lost. The Red Light District is described as a “maze” to show that there are wrong turns that lead to horrible things and there is only one right way out and sometimes it is very hard to follow. This “maze” can easily be connected to the myth of the Minotaur and Daedalus and his maze. If the wrong turn is taken in the maze designed by Daedalus and Icarus then the path would lead to the Minotaur and danger. There is danger in the Red Light District waiting around the corners for Stephen.

In the next couple of sentences, Joyce describes Stephen as “trembling,” and “awakened from a slumber of centuries.” (p. 98) Stephen is “trembling” because he does not know where to go and it is scary to him to feel not comforted and lost. But then, Joyce shifts in his tone of loss to a tone of comfort and hospitality writing:

He stood in the middle of the roadway, his heart clamouring against his bosom in a tumult. A young woman dressed in a long pink gown laid her hand on his arm to detain him and gazed into his face. She said gaily: / Good night, Willie Dear! (p. 98)

Joyce’s introduction of this woman strongly resembles the comfort that a mother provides her son when they are lost and need a place to go. This woman takes Stephen by the arm and brings him into her home. In the next line of the new paragraph, “Her room was warm and lightsome,” (p. 98) the description strongly connects to the way the inside of a mother’s womb would be described.

Going back to the thoughts of the inside of a mother’s womb, it is warm and shields the baby from the elements of the outside world. It is where the baby is floating in a pool and receiving nourishment from the umbilical cord. Joyce’s choice to use the word “lightsome” is not to illustrate the womb being “lit up.” It is used to connect the fact that light gives life. The sun provides life and the womb is “lightsome” because of the umbilical cord and the life it is bringing to the baby.

Later on in the passage Joyce describes the scene as the woman “undid her gown,” (p. 98) and “she came over to him and embraced him gaily and gravely.” (p. 99) Stephen knows that he is in a predicament that is morally corrupting him and he is unable to speak. In the next paragraph Joyce writes, “She passed her tinkling hand through his hair, calling him a little rascal,” (p. 99) almost in a playful manner like the one found within a mother and her newborn child. Then she says, “Give me a kiss,” (p. 99) and Stephen is forced into a moral dilemma once again.

All this is quite different from when Stephen was contemplating as to whether or not he wanted to kiss the girl on the tram because now he was in a position that was overwhelming and physical. Before, with the girl on the tram, she does not comfort Stephen, she does not reach out to him; like the prostitute does. Although Stephen was not the one who was lusting this time, it was the prostitute, whose “round arms held him firmly to her,” (p. 99). When she said to Stephen “Give me a kiss,” (p. 99) the question went deeper than the simple action of kissing. She was asking Stephen to love her and show her the affection that he shows his mother. But, he does not love this prostitute. He doesn’t even know her and it impossible to love such a woman. That is the reason why Joyce writes, “His lips would not bend to kiss her.” (p. 99) But after all was said and done, Stephen looses control and he “[surrenders] himself to her, body and mind, conscious of nothing in the world but the dark pressure of her softly parting lips,” (p. 99) and Stephen gives into the lust that eventually taints his soul.

In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, Stephen Dedalus evolves from a young boy going to boarding school into a young man who finds out who he is and what he wants to devote his life to. His experiences, as talked about in the essay, show the different stages of evolution that Stephen goes through in his journey through life to become an artist. Stephen eventually sheds the chains holding him from exploring the world of art and James Joyce beautifully writes his Portrait.