A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Chapter 3
Stephen continues to visit prostitutes after that first visit, and although he understands that his actions are sinful, he is unable to muster the faith for prayer. He believes in the existence of God, but he believes that he has accepted damnation as the consequence of his actions. Later, Stephen muses over the Virgin Mary through a Latin prayer that he had learned about her. He entertains the notion of retaining his spiritual health despite his sins and spirals further into thoughts of the sins that he has committed. He doesn’t believe that he is just lustful, but also jealous, greedy, and gluttonous, and finds several other vices in himself. He attends a sermon before a religious retreat that is being organized by his college, and the priest asks them all to think about the health of their souls. The Jesuit Priest asks them to use the time of retreat to contemplate death, judgment, heaven, and hell, the final elements of human life. On his way back from the sermon, Stephen hears the laughter of a young girl, and he is immediately reminded of his lustful relations with the city prostitutes.
Over the next few days, Stephen avidly listens to the rector of his church deliver a deeply moving sermon. The priest talks to them about the conditions of hell, and how a few of the archangels were led in revolt by the devil who had committed the grave sin of the ego. He powerfully details the conditions of hell and the misery that awaits all sinful individuals who refuse the grace of God that is made so easily available to them through the sacrifice of God’s only begotten son. Stephen’s conscience is deeply affected by the descriptions of never-ending punishment in the depths of hell should he continue to indulge his sinful desires. Most of the other students don’t seem to be as deeply influenced by the sermons as Stephen who doesn’t interact with his peers after the sermon. He makes his way home and continues to contemplate the words of his rector.
Stephen has a terrible nightmare just as the retreat is coming to an end, in which he sees himself in hell. In his dreams, he finds hell to be populated by ugly goat-like creatures that seem to be ambling around in the darkness. He wakes with horror and a feeling of claustrophobia. Stephen forces some fresh air into his body and decides that he needs to make a confession and set off on a path of spiritual healing. He decides that he cannot go to his school chapel, and so sets out to look for a church far beyond where he would be known. He goes through the city and finds a church that satisfies him and goes to sit and wait for his opportunity to confess his sins. As Stephen is waiting for his opportunity at confession, he battles real fear of placing his faults before someone for the first time. He nearly does not go through with it, but when his time comes, his body moves to go into the confessional before he can truly stop to consider. Reluctantly, and with shame, Stephen tells the priest of his vices. The old asks him his age and reminds him that this sin will ruin his body along with his soul. He asks Stephen to repose faith in God and to pray for the aid of the Virgin Mary. Stephen experiences immense bliss after the confession and sets out on a course of religious piety.
Analysis
Stephen’s escapades with the Dublin prostitutes lead him to struggle with the concept of sin and by extension religion. Stephen’s understanding of religion has primarily come to him through his relatives and close family, and he does not trust or respect the family members that had preached to him about religion, especially his governess and his father. The religious retreat put an end to the abstraction that Stephen had created in his mind, about the difference that existed between the Stephen that commits the lustful sins, and the Stephen that is generally regarded to be a well-mannered child. The praise that is heaped on Stephen by his teachers ends up confusing him to a great degree about his identity. He is deeply discomforted by the idea that he can commit acts he considers to be deplorable, and yet keep them separate from himself so that no one else even suspects of their existence.
A lot of the text in the third chapter is focused on the Sermon that he attends during the religious retreat. The long extracts of the sermon indicate how deeply Stephen is affected by the descriptions of hell. This highlights Stephen’s artistic imagination that can entrench the vivid images of hell, which come to dominate his mindset so much so that he finds himself banished to hell in his nightmare. This sense of impending doom impels Stephen to seek shelter in the institution of the church, and he decides to confess. Stephen’s confession turns out to be rather anti-climatic and doesn’t quite stand out when compared to Stephen’s vivid impressions of hell and salvation. This aspect of the novel develops the theme of Stephen’s spiritual homelessness, as he later comes to realize that the institution of religion has always been hollow for him. Just as the confession doesn’t quite match the depth of emotion he experiences, Stephen comes to recognize that he does not experience true faith in his religion. This section of the novel can also be interpreted as the author’s means of communicating the idea that true salvation or faith cannot be birthed from a fear of hell and damnation. That these transitory emotions of terror and worry cannot truly lead to birthing true Christian faith in anyone, at least not the kind that stands the test of time. Instead, the author may be suggesting that true faith in God can only come from a place of love and surrender.
