A Portrait of The Artist As A Young Man - Allusions in The Novel

Allusions in The Novel

The book is set in Joyce's native Ireland, partly in Dublin. It deals with various Irish issues of the time such as the quest for autonomy and the role of the Catholic Church. A particular personage, who is also mentioned in Dubliners and Ulysses, and alluded to in Finnegans Wake, is the Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell.

The myth of Daedalus and Icarus features prominently in the novel. In Greek mythology, Daedalus is an architect and inventor who becomes trapped in a labyrinth of his own construction. Later, he finds himself on an island and fashions wings of feathers and wax for his son (Icarus) and for himself, so that they can escape. As they fly away Icarus grows bolder and flies higher, until, finally, he flies too close to the sun, which causes the wax to melt and Icarus to fall into the sea.

Stephen's name is an allusion to Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Stephen Dedalus, like Saint Stephen, has conflicts with the established religion. The Divine Comedy is also echoed in the name Stephen gives his aunt – Dante. Dante is so-called because of the way 'The Auntie' sounds with her Cork accent. The epigraph is from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes ("And he sets his mind to unknown arts").