The stream-of-consciousness novel is a 20th-century innovation that aims to depict the totality of experience through human consciousness. This necessarily means a withdrawal from the direct representation of social interactions and a reduction of the external world to a simple object of the hero's subjective consciousness. Unlike the narration of objective circumstances, this individual consciousness is formless and undramatic, and is incapable of bringing its own form and order to the novel. This form and this order must necessarily be imposed by the novelist, because the impression of a flow of thoughts without connection between them that this type of novel aims to produce must have an artistic unity, which is an indispensable necessity in all creation artistic. The most important means by which the conscious novelist achieves such unity is the employment of a system of symbols, which connects the various threads into an integrated whole and imposes a thematic unity on the unconnected strands of thought. to plagiarism. Get Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” by James Joyce is not the classic novel about the current of consciousness, as is his "Ulysses" or "Finnegan's Wake", but the system of symbols on which it is developed is as important as in the other two novels. Without this system, the hero's mind would be a very loose integrator, imposing only structural unity and not strong thematic unity on the novel. A symbol can be defined as anything that signifies something else and whose meaning becomes evident through mental association or tradition. Symbols have a range of references relating to different levels of human society, from religion and culture to emotions and beliefs. MH Abrams in “A Glossary of Literary Terms” classifies symbols into “conventional” or “public” and “private” or “personal”1. The former have developed in the consciousness of an entire culture across several generations and include symbols like the Cross, the Rose or the Lamb. The latter are symbols whose associations and meanings are developed by an individual author and must be understood within the context of his or her work alone. Symbols can also stand alone or be part of a complete system of associated symbols that run throughout the text. Both of these types are very common in stream-of-consciousness novels, and these novels often rely on such symbol systems. For example, Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse" uses the symbols of the lighthouse throughout the novel as a unifying agent, while individual symbols are scattered intermittently throughout the novel. Similarly, Joyce’s “Ulysses” uses the myth of Ulysses and his journey as its main symbol. In “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” also, both types of symbols are used. The main symbol is best seen in the novel's most important epiphany – the one where Stephen looks at a girl wading in the sea at the end of Chapter IV. Here, the main impression that emerges from the description of this girl is that she looks like a bird – “She looked like someone who had been transformed by magic into the image of a strange and beautiful seabird” 2. It’s that bird imagery. this permeates the novel from the beginning and continues until the end, symbolizing all that is beautiful and free in Stephen's consciousness. Emma, ​​the embodiment of his ideal woman, is also like a bird – towards the end of the novel, when he begins to feel sympathy for her, then he describes her as "simple", "strange" and " voluntary ". A bird can also evokeaspirational bonds and a quest for the unattainable – as we see in this wonderful account of Stephen standing under the colonnade of the library, watching the many birds circling together in the sky, preparing to make their way. back where they came from. Their escape makes him think of his own plans to fly over the seas, far from his country Ireland, towards the continent, to realize his ambition of becoming an artist. The image of the bird is also linked to this other major symbolic figure in the novel, from which Stephen Dedalus gets his name. The Daedalus of myth is also a winged figure – “the falcon-like man for whom he was named, emerging from captivity on wicker-woven wings”3. The very name of Dedalus reminds him of the image of a bird, but also of art: “Now, in the name of the fabulous artisan, he seemed to hear the sound of rolling waves and see a winged form flying above water. waves and slowly climbing into the air... a symbol of the artist forging again in his studio from the lazy matter of the earth a new impalpable and imperishable being which flies away. »4. Stephen's alienation from his family, particularly his father, results in his search for a father figure – someone who will be his mentor in his search for a vocation. This research is based on the mythical Dedalus, whom he begins to consider as his true father, the father of the spirit, and not just of blood. At the other end is his biological family, for whom he is “rather in the mystical kinship of the host family, the adopted child and the adoptive brother”5. Dedalus, "the great craftsman", flying from captivity, becomes the symbol of his own liberation from the captivity of his nation, his language and his family, and a life devoted to art, to a total self-expression. What is implied in this symbol, but not fully understood by Stephen himself, is that he becomes at this point Dedalus' son Icarus, who in the myth attempted to fly, but not being as wise as his father, lost his father's feathers. his wings in the melting heat of the sun, and drowned in the sea. He had tried to fly too high, without following his father's advice about the middle path – and the question remains whether Stephen himself did wouldn't try to do the same. Will Stephen be the Dedalus he wants to be, or is he doomed to become another Icarus? Another image becomes a symbol as well woven as that of the bird in the novel – the symbol of the Rose. We also find this image on the very first page of the book – “O, the wild roses are blooming / In the little green place”; which the child Stephen corrupts in his lisp in the next line – “O, the green wothe Botheth”6. The meaning of this line is clarified much later, when Stephen sits in Clongowes' classroom, looking and thinking about the rose badges pinned to the shirts of the boys around him. The red rose is the badge of the House of Lancaster and the white is that of the House of York – the school's two houses, named after the English Wars of the Roses (1453 – 85). Soon after, unable to make up the amount given to the boys, he starts thinking about all the different colors of roses besides those depicted on his school regalia – so many beautiful colors: pink, cream, lavender. However, despite the wonderful variety of colors of roses, there is no green rose, like the one in the song he sang as a child. Perhaps, he also thinks, we can have a green rose if we look hard enough in the world! The Green Rose thus becomes a symbol of the inaccessible, something that is not found in reality, but which can be achieved in.66.