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7/12/2025, 3:17:09 AM
II
First brief section: a quick sketch of a summer vacation. Stephen stays briefly in "Blackrock" with relatives, family and a great-uncle. A short time later, some (horse-drawn?) vans come and their things are moved elsewhere. Mom is crying. For the first time, Stephen finds himself in Dublin. The city.
The main shift here is that the narrative voice is maturing. It's still a bit simple, but Stephen is much more rapidly and easily picking up on the essentials, the cues of adult life, and further he senses that he will have to fully participate in it very soon. He understands that dad is in some sort of general (financial, legal etc) trouble, but this is unclear just now, hence the moving. Also, he does not go back to Clongowes as expected. Awareness of sexuality is also indicated as he reads Count of Monte Cristo and during regular walks passes by the house of one "Mercedes".
Now Stephen is a teenager, at some sort of high school as it were, and of an evening there's a combination talent show and school play, or something like that. Various boys and Catholic authority figures busy themselves, get everyone in place. Meanwhile Stephen goes around a back alley and one Heron and another fellow tease him that he's got the hots for a particular girl, presumably the same as above. Heron's features are conveniently described as bird-like, Heron is a bit of a cold jerk. The other boys are a bit dim, but Heron and Stephen are fairly sharp by this point. Stephen is something along the lines of: quiet, aloof, serious. He now has a reputation for writing essays, for being a writer. A while back a priest publicly humiliated him (second time) over a perceived heresy in an essay. Heron got onto this and he and some dim others got talking about literature and the others like Tennyson while Stephen liked Byron, but Heron noted that Tennyson was a damn dirty heretic so they beat Stephen for a while to try to make him recant this position but Stephen didn't give in. Both in the present-tense play-interaction and in the past beating, the word "admit" was the trigger linking both. Now Stephen puts on his makeup for his part in the play, and she is observing it seems.
The memory of Heron's beating doesn't arouse anger, although it should. Something here about boys fighting, and once they've fought, they get on fine with each other, except that's not how it really goes down in this case. They corner him and smack him around a bit, it isn't a fair fight. Stephen is just detached, "above it all", or something like that. Or he wants to feel that he's above it all.
One through-line in all this is that Stephen is learning to be like dad, sort of. Work with the church when you have to, but use your own reason, stick up for yourself. The (un)-friendly interaction with Heron, when Heron seems at all times to be testing Stephen, is an unwelcome premonition of what adult male socializing (competing, dick-waving) must be like.
First brief section: a quick sketch of a summer vacation. Stephen stays briefly in "Blackrock" with relatives, family and a great-uncle. A short time later, some (horse-drawn?) vans come and their things are moved elsewhere. Mom is crying. For the first time, Stephen finds himself in Dublin. The city.
The main shift here is that the narrative voice is maturing. It's still a bit simple, but Stephen is much more rapidly and easily picking up on the essentials, the cues of adult life, and further he senses that he will have to fully participate in it very soon. He understands that dad is in some sort of general (financial, legal etc) trouble, but this is unclear just now, hence the moving. Also, he does not go back to Clongowes as expected. Awareness of sexuality is also indicated as he reads Count of Monte Cristo and during regular walks passes by the house of one "Mercedes".
Now Stephen is a teenager, at some sort of high school as it were, and of an evening there's a combination talent show and school play, or something like that. Various boys and Catholic authority figures busy themselves, get everyone in place. Meanwhile Stephen goes around a back alley and one Heron and another fellow tease him that he's got the hots for a particular girl, presumably the same as above. Heron's features are conveniently described as bird-like, Heron is a bit of a cold jerk. The other boys are a bit dim, but Heron and Stephen are fairly sharp by this point. Stephen is something along the lines of: quiet, aloof, serious. He now has a reputation for writing essays, for being a writer. A while back a priest publicly humiliated him (second time) over a perceived heresy in an essay. Heron got onto this and he and some dim others got talking about literature and the others like Tennyson while Stephen liked Byron, but Heron noted that Tennyson was a damn dirty heretic so they beat Stephen for a while to try to make him recant this position but Stephen didn't give in. Both in the present-tense play-interaction and in the past beating, the word "admit" was the trigger linking both. Now Stephen puts on his makeup for his part in the play, and she is observing it seems.
The memory of Heron's beating doesn't arouse anger, although it should. Something here about boys fighting, and once they've fought, they get on fine with each other, except that's not how it really goes down in this case. They corner him and smack him around a bit, it isn't a fair fight. Stephen is just detached, "above it all", or something like that. Or he wants to feel that he's above it all.
One through-line in all this is that Stephen is learning to be like dad, sort of. Work with the church when you have to, but use your own reason, stick up for yourself. The (un)-friendly interaction with Heron, when Heron seems at all times to be testing Stephen, is an unwelcome premonition of what adult male socializing (competing, dick-waving) must be like.
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