Existentialism in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and James Baldwin's Sonny's Blues

Running head: ENGLISH LITERATURE
ENGLISH LITERATURE
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Author Note

1ENGLISH LITERATURE
Modernism refers to the movement in the realms of literature that deals with the literary
compositions of the early twentieth century. There is a discrepancy on the commencement of the
modernism in the literature. A section of the scholars suggests that the modernist movements
around the time after the first world war while there exists another section of the scholars who
opine that the modernism movement in literature had started back in the nineteenth century
(Eysteinsson). The major theme of the stories in discussion refer to the theme of existentialism.
The following paper attempts a discussion on the characters Stephen in James Joyce’s famous
novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Sonny in James Baldwin’s famous short
story Sonny’s Blues. The paper attempts a comparison of the character traits that are depicted by
the two different characters that are presented in the given short stories.
James Joyce is one of the most celebrated writers of the late-nineteenth and the early
twentieth century. The concerned author is known to be one of the greatest poets, short story
writers and novelists of the era who contributed majorly to the avant-grade plays that revolved
around the lives of the people who have been living in the twentieth century. The novel in
discussion, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man revolves around the intellectual as well as
the religious awakening of the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus (Joyce). The character is presumed
to be an alter-ego of the novelist and is created to be an allusion to the consummate craftsman
who was presented in the Greek Mythology, Daedulus. The character is known to have been
putting forth the rebellion against the conventions that were instilled in him since his birth. These
conventions majorly referred to the several conventions that were instilled by the Catholic
church and the Irish conventions. This led to the conditions wherein the protagonist had to take a
self-exile from his country Ireland to the European areas (Saleem and Bani-ata). The novel in
discussion attempted a discussion on the existentialist thought processes that were adopted by the

2ENGLISH LITERATURE
author in the matters that are presented within the other compositions of the author like
Finnegans Wake (1939) and Ulysses (1922).
In the given novel, the protagonist is observed to be modelled in the light of the author
himself. The protagonist is observed to have been a thoughtful and sensitive character and is
known to have been reappearing in the later masterpieces that has been composed by Joyce,
Ulysses (Ziegler). The family of the concerned protagonist is observed to have been running into
debt however the protagonist is known to have been getting educated at the best of the schools
and then further into the university for the higher education. The protagonist of the novel finds
the dealing with the various bonds that are imposed socially to be claustrophobic and very
difficult to handle. The course of the novel demonstrates the change in the character of the novel
and the ways in which the protagonist tends to interpret the world around him. The protagonist
experiences a huge transformation during his life at the educational institutions. The major factor
that is revealed in the growth of the artist refers to the instillation of the change in the minds of
the protagonist when he refuses to attend the church and instead get admission into the colleges
(Torchiana). The existentialism that is depicted within the minds of the protagonist of A Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Man tends to portray the fact that Stephen faces a change in his beliefs.
The protagonist is known to have been facing a transition from the belief that he had in the
Almighty God to the belief in the aesthetic beauty that is present within the nature that surrounds
the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus.
On the other hand, the character of Sonny as represented by the author James Baldwin in
his famous short story, Sonny’s Blues, is observed to be a person who is addicted to the drug
heroin (Baldwin). The protagonist of the story is Sonny’s elder brother who offers major insights
into the character of Sonny by putting forth the various hardships that he had to face during his