Thus Stephen understands the reason why Dante does not like Eileen but not the intention of it, which is a interesting way to frame such an understanding of childhood. 2 A Portrait was begun in September, 1907, immediately after the composition of The Dead Joyce began writing Stephen Hero in 1904. It seems as a showcase of how Joyce wishes to frame the mindset of a child like Stephen where these notions of difference are meaningless to children, as if this intolerance of not being friends with someone due to a difference of religion is a learned behavior not an innate one. Within this quote Joyce treats Stephen’s ignorance on religious intolerance as a show of his innocence.

Jeri Johnson (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000),pg 29.

James Joyces novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) is entirely concerned with the development of its main character, Stephen Dedalus. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church. James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ed. James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Tower of Ivory, they used to say, House of Gold! How could a woman be a tower of ivory or a house of gold? Who was right then?” A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, autobiographical novel by James Joyce, published serially in The Egoist in 191415 and in book form in 1916 considered by many the greatest bildungsroman in the English language.

“And she did not like him to play with Eileen because Eileen was a protestant and when she was young she knew children that used to play with protestants and the protestants used to make fun of the litany of the Blessed Virgin.

Portrait joyce