A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Atonement because an Aquarius and a Gemini would have got along

g just fine

darling one, you are young and lovely, But inexperienced, and though you think The world is at your feet, It can rise up and tread on you.

One peculiar thing about Joyces novel being a modern novel is its third person narrator which follows the main character from the beginning of the book right up to the very last pages. This seems uncanny at first because one would not expect a third person narrator in a modern prose, seeing that this detached, impersonal point of view would account for omniscience and objectiveness in which modernism believes no more. Furthermore, Joyces choice of subject and means of shaping it that is, a novel which would resemble a Blidungsroman would not be the first thing on a modern writers list. And yet, this is the very modernity of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. First of all, the choice of a third person narrator is deceitful, because Joyce reinterprets this convention: instead of being as it has been previously mentioned an omniscient, omnipotent voice which would look into every characters mind and soul, it actually seems to be Stephen Dedalus own voice, lacking the experience and courage to speak for himself and thus creating this false narrator which would speak on his account, while at the same time having a paternal role a guvernors one. This can be clearly seen while reading the novel: if in the beginning, while Stephen is still a child, the narrators voice seems childish too (Uncle Charles and Dante clapped. They were older than his father and mother but uncle Charles was older than Dante), it becomes more and more mature as Stephen grows mature (But how faintly it was inbreathed, how passionlessly as if the seraphim themselves were fearing to awake wholly). Moreover, it has all the characteristics of a first person narrator: while it has no access whatsoever into any other characters mind except Stephens, in his case the voice seems to know every hidden thought, belief or feeling which would affect young Dedalus. It follows him day and night as it were his very own shadow.

This leads us to another modern aspect of Joyces novel: this novel isnt necessarily a novel of action. Instead of focusing on an elaborate and intricate plot, the attention is focused on the interior rather than the exterior: the narrator sets about describing all of the inner experiences of Stephen; if something happens on the outside, than it is sure to trigger a whole train of thoughts and emotions carefully followed and described by the ever so present and intrusive narrator. This focus on the interior events also implies a distortion of linear temporality: in the mind of the main character, present, exterior experiences would (very modernly) determine the awakening of past and its coming into the present in the shape of memories; past and present live consequently intertwined. Moreover, there are times in which it would seem that the memories take full control until there is no more present time, just presentified past. The question of time namely, history is further discussed when its three representatives: religion, national identity and language. Stephen would seem to try and detach himself from the history of man: by the end of the book he is no longer a catholic and he does not believe in ideas such as patriotism or national language. It would seem that only personal history and past the memories would matter. But then again, what about his name? He is named after the first Christian martyr and his surname belongs to the mythological figure Daedalus; just as the artificer constructed a pair of wings for himself and his son Icarus so that they would escape the island of Crete their prison and King Minos, this main character also wants to build himself wings so that he would escape his country and his religion: When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.. The question, therefore, remains: is he still bound to history or does he manage to flee from it? The answer lies within the last few pages, by which Joyce proves himself modern yet again and reinterprets the tradition; this is not the usual Bildungsroman: Stephen Dedalus outgrows his own fiction by developing a voice of his own. He is no longer a character in a book, therefore he no longer needs that paternal voice of the third persons narrator: he takes control over his destiny and speaks out quite literally his independence. He is no Icarus, the son, but Dedalus, the father, the artificer, the inventor. Therefore, he no longer needs a god to set out a destiny for him; he is more than capable of doing that for himself.

Your most sophisticated readers might be well up on the latest Bergsonian theories of consciousness, but Im sure they retain a childlike desire to be told a story, to be held in suspense, to know what happens.

This is exactly what Atonement does, for more than 90% of it: it gives the reader a good, yet seemingly innocent piece of story. It has its third person narrator and this time it is omniscient and omnipotent: it knows the very hidden thoughts of every character and sets about analyzing them just like in a good, old-fashioned traditional novel. But every now and then, the narration takes a small, odd turn, by means of prolepsis: six decades later she would describe how at the age of thirteen she had written her way through a whole history of literature, or within half the hour, Briony would commit her crime; so much would not have happened, nothing would have happened, and smoothing hand of time would have made the evening barely memorable. While still pretending that this is no more than an intentional disturbing of linear temporality, one cannot ignore the feeling that the characters and the whole story is a tad more artificial than it should be; that the narrator, although unintrussive, knows exactly what it is going to happen in the end; then there is the final revelation, in the last pages of the novel. Therefore, it would seem though it is not entirely true, as it will be proven further on that what 77 year-old Briony managed to do is achieve a god-like position. Unlike Joyces Stephen, who only managed to be a god for himself, creating his life and his personal space and time, McEwans main character took it a bit further: she didnt settle with experiencing the wholeness of both the interior and the exterior already existing world, because that would not suffice her goal; instead, she aimed at creating a new reality, a fictionalized, yet realistical one, where the allegedly real persons (still characters for the novel Atonement written by Ian McEwan) become fictionalized characters in the fictionalized version of Atonement, as written by Briony, thus making the real-real novel work with no less than three levels of reality. But whereas Joyce only hints at his characters condition of god for himself and never states it out loud, leaving it for personal interpretation, Atonement discusses this newlyachieved position in a very overt (thus post-modern) manner; by doing this, it aims at erasing the boundary between the real reality our reality and the novels reality 77 year-old Brionys reality and it does so by showing the reader the process of documentation one writer old Briony has to undergo in order to write a novel which would be as real as

possible. The result is a very self-reflexive piece of writing where the author shows itself as the creator in a very open and direct manner; the inner workings, mechanisms, plans and drafts are made available for all the world to see, a situation very different from that of modernism. So far, it has been established that Atonement aims at erasing the difference between reality and fiction, by trying to put in on display and make it as convincing as possible. But one might actually take into account that what the novel could theoretically do is even establish a connection between our reality and the second level of fiction the one in which Turner and Cecilia live hapilly ever after. One would only need to look at how careful and detailed that scene is built what other relevance (except for making the scene more credible) has the landlady got? If the truth would not have been told, that might have actually been the novels reality. This is where the merit of post-modernism comes into light: it claims a reality (a fictional one) by creating another reality inside that fiction which would be undone so the first fictionalized reality would seem as plausible as it could be. Briony might have actually written Atonement and she could be seen as its author, and not Ian McEwan. Or could she? 77 year-old Briony might seem to be The Creator: it has full access to the inner, deepest thoughts of each of its main characters. She considers herself a god. She seems to surpass Stephens condition (Joyces condition?), for she does not settle for one reality, simply discovering it and enjoy it, but tries to create a new one (thus creating space and time from scratch as it can be seen in the second and third book). She creates characters (people?) breathing further life into them and thus creates another version of history, rather than try and modify or flee from it, as it happens in Joyces novel and it does this until the moment where she chooses to admit her forgery. By doing this, she builds herself as a creator, as a god, but she is god only in fiction: her book cannot modify the actual course of events nor can it interfere with reality her reality (she gives the explanation regarding Marshall and Cecilia being alive). Morevoer, it seems that while Joyces character could create himself as being more or less his own god, Briony cant even do that. Briony too, being a little girl, is as much a character as anybody else and she too seems to have a predetermined destiny, even if it would appear that she is in charge of it. She is bound by the laws and power of fiction in a double way: first, she is a character in Brionys own tale and secondly, she is a prisoner of fiction which is more than a mere habit or pleasure of hers. That is her meaning in life. The proof is that she cannot find atonement; that as hard as 77 year old briony might have tried over the years, through different drafts, to change the course of her

life, she couldnt change it; her destiny is pre and post-determined at the same time. Characters and their destiny remain the same, because it is written and Brionys, no matter her age, looks like a character herself; she has the destiny created by herself and by Ian McEwan. By admitting her forgery she admits herself as being a character. The main difference between these two novels and, therefore, the biggest change literature has undergone is the way in which both author and fiction is perceived. Whereas modern prose tends to focus on the individual and his inner events and passions, giving an interiorized version and space and time, post-modernity focuses on the mechanisms of the prose itself. The latter is more self-conscious, discussing itself instead of trying to hide its inner workings and it aims at merging reality and fiction; it also is more eventful. The modern narrator is as subtle and unknowing as he can be, while still pulling the strings and make himself be perceived, whereas the post-modern one could is so overt than he might actually and may very well be a character of his own fiction, which would only make fiction more realistic, therefore more fictional.