a portrait of the artist as a young man by james joyce

Stephen looked at the plump turkey which had lain, trussed and 2Īll blessed themselves and Mr Dedalus with a sigh of pleasure liftedįrom the dish the heavy cover pearled around the edge with glistening This consumption and refusal of food connects with Ireland’s wider history that has been witness to a troubled relationship with food in terms of both its availability and use, through denial, as a tool of political resistance. Mirroring these positions the men “eat hungrily” while “Mrs Dedalus laid down her knife and fork” unable to eat in the midst of argument. The men around the table lead in voicing their Nationalist views, while the women, defending the Catholic Church are positioned in a place of defence. Joyce parallels the political discussion with the consuming and denial of food, a theme that continues throughout Joyce’s writing but begins with this scene in Portrait. Dedalus leads grace and then a discussion ensues across the table about the involvement of the Catholic Church in Irish politics centred on the fight for Irish independence, spearheaded by Charles Stuart Parnell and the interjection of the Catholic Church into politics when Parnell’s affair with a married woman was discovered. This is the first Christmas dinner that the lead character Stephen Dedalus, newly returned from boarding school, is invited to sit at the adult table. In the following extract Christmas dinner is served and a debate ensues about the politics of the day.

1 In Joyce’s earlier coming of age novel, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) a scene staged around Christmas dinner provides a pertinent example of the author’s use of the meal and the dining table as a means to consolidate character relationships, and frame political discussions identifying both meal and dining table as a space of psychological and political debate. The novel Ulysses (1922), for example, tells the story of a day in the life of Leopold Bloom as he wanders the streets of Dublin a day in which food looms large linking appetite, bodily function and identity.

Throughout Joyce’s writing, food is used as a means to aid characterisation, describe a given encounter and develop narrative as well as a means to point to underlying complex cultural and political histories.

A portrait of the artist as a young man by james joyce