Joyce's Epiphanic Mode: Material Language and the Representation of Sexuality in Stephen Hero and Portrait - Critical Essay

Twentieth Century Literature, Spring, 2000 by Joshua Jacobs

Stephen goes on to describe to his friend Cranly his theory of epiphanies, in an early version of his statements on aesthetics in Portrait (204-15). Given that in Portrait the event of the epiphany itself is removed from the theorization that had been linked to it in Stephen Hero, it is not so surprising that much of the critical dialogue has focused on the implications of Stephen's aesthetic critique and how it changes from the earlier work to the later. But the initial framing of this theory in uneasy juxtaposition with a scene of "triviality," and Stephen's description of the "collecting" process as something separate from these scenes as such, suggests that we should avoid mimicking Stephen's attempts to distance the office of the "man of letters" from the events and language of these moments. A closer look at the exemplary epiphany shows that Stephen's self-assured argument for clarity is in fact a reaction against an unsettling multiplicity of language and sexuality.

The epiphany section of Stephen Hero begins with Stephen infuriated by his mother's religiosity, an anger that is quickly refocused on Emma Clery. Stephen is frustrated by his inability to fully criticize or ignore her: "In every stray image on the streets he saw her soul manifest itself and every such manifestation renewed the intensity of his disapproval" (210). The narration, explicit in criticizing Stephen in a way the Portrait narration is not, then somewhat mockingly relates Stephen's proposed "theory of dualism which would symbolize the twin eternities of spirit and nature in the twin eternities of male and female." Thus Stephen's nascent desire to stabilize identity provides the background for the epiphanic encounter itself, which defines a correspondence between fragmented, stylized speech and the sexuality that pervades its utterance.

With these structuring factors in mind, Stephen's theoretical attention to the fixed relation of parts to the whole object (or claritas; see Stephen Hero 213) seems much more a practical attempt at control than an abstract paradigm. The free play and agency of "parts"--parts of the body and the soul within the body--will pervade the representation of Stephen's artistic and personal development in Portrait; here we can see this diffusion of discrete identity in the manifestation of Emma's soul in "every stray image of the streets." Given its unbidden repetition, this consuming encounter has as much power to define Stephen as he has power to fix it within his categorizing scrutiny. The particular rephrasing of this line in the paragraph that follows the epiphanic scene--as a "sudden [and thus singular] spiritual manifestation"--suggests Stephen's attempt to make both himself and the ambiguous inspirations of epiphanic scenes stable in time and in language. Equally important is the epiphanic exchange itself, which despite being surrounded by qualifiers such as "triviality" and "vulgarity of speech" is clearly more central to Stephen's imaginative process than the Ballast Office clock (which becomes the official exemplum). The repeated "stage direction," "(again inaudibly)," shows how Stephen's codifying impulse is frustrated by his incomplete observation; also, the separation of syllables by ellipses conveys a materiality of language that I feel corresponds to its sexualized context, particularly in contrast to the graphically unremarkable language that surrounds the epiphany text.