The first part of this book really resonated with me and my own experiences growing up. Until recently, I was pretty tiny, and throughout my early school career I was usually the smallest kid in my class. It didn't really help me either that I wasn't particularly athletic, due to all the time I spent indoors reading books and doing other uncool things.
I remember making a lot of the same weird word associations and gathering memories in the same way Stephen did in the beginning of the book. One of my earliest memories was actually me walking on my driveway, looking down at my feet, and thinking to myself: "I will remember this exact moment." I still do. Which is weird, I wonder what kind of space I'd have for more important things in my brain if I didn't remember things like that.
In the more recent readings, Stephen struggles with himself because he believes he is unique in all the things he has going on in his mind. Everyone goes through that stage where they think to themselves how interesting and introspective they are, not realizing that every individual is undergoing the same thing. It's a really difficult thing for me to grasp, because I will only ever experience my own perspective. I will almost never be able to understand what those other people go through as a result of that. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is really interesting to me since it's essentially the next best thing in being able to see the process of maturity again through the eyes of someone else.
In the early parts of the book, Stephen falls into one of those trap questions, the dreaded "do you kiss your mother at night?" As we talked about in class, there really is no correct answer besides not really responding. I remember falling for a lot of those back when I was in middle school. Including, but not limited to:
"Hey, I like your shoes."
If you looked at your shoes, they would punch you and laugh and say that you were a woman for having multiple pairs of shoes and needing to see what you were wearing.
"Do you like fish sticks?"
When you say "fish sticks" fast, apparently it sounds like "fishdicks." If you say yes, they say: "well then you must be a gay fish." If you say no, they would go on about how delicious and wonderful actual fish sticks were.
There were a few others, like holding your hand a certain way and if you looked they would punch you.
Thinking back about these is making me pretty mad and confused. I'm glad we're all passed those.
That moment you describe in the driveway is especially Joycean, not simply because you do remember it, but because what you're remembering is more remembering thinking about how you'll remember it than remembering "it" itself. There's a double level of conscious awareness here that seems totally appropriate to the complex picture Joyce creates of Stephen's self-consciousness, his awareness of himself as always in between two fluid states--the person he was, and the person he's becoming.
ReplyDeleteOh, and those middle-school interrogations are classics: the particular forms are new to me (the shoes, the fish sticks), but the dynamics are as old as time.
I went through the stage of thinking I was unique and introspective, as you put it, when I was younger. And I would say I still have moments of that kind of reflection. I associate this mindset loosely with childhood and of having a childish view on the world. As we grow older we realize that we are actually not that unique as individuals. I think as adults we are expected to fit into a certain mold, whether that be in our jobs or family life, and that quasi-arrogance of our younger years disappears. Coming-of-age is a wonderful, eye-opening experience. However, with new eyes also comes a greater sense of reality. Stephen begins noticing his family's financial situation in Chapter 2, something that I wouldn't have imagined in the Chapter 1.
ReplyDeleteThose middle-school trap questions were HELL! I never understood them, which was obviously the point. I remember one pretty distinctly. I think guys would come up to people and ask them if their adam's apple was big. When you answered they just laughed and moved on to the next person. Still don't know the meaning of that one...
Most of my middle school career was a series of being confused by different things. I guess that is part of what middle school is, but that adam's apple question just really brought me back to what little sense that part of my life made. I think at the time I had some sense of the unreality and strangeness of it all, but at the same time I was painfully caught up in the daily struggle that was middle school. While I don't remember ever being physically abused as part of those weird--though admittedly sorta funny--questions, they definitely featured largely in my being utterly confused by the world around me. They also led to my being very bad at telling when people were being serious or not (I am still terrible at noticing sarcasm).
DeleteUnfortunately, the best reply to those questions is usually agression.
Delete"How big is your Adam's Apple?"
"Go fuck yourself!"
Can get laughs and divert the attention back to the asker.
Is it possible that the Adams Apple was asked to girls? Because girls tend not to have them? I don't know
In my experience the trap questions really peaked around first grade, and then declined steadily to the present. Since it was first grade and there was thus a strong sexual taboo that nobody quite understood, most of the questions involved asking a boy or girl if they liked people of the opposite gender--if they liked them, then they would be disdained for being involved in romance, and if they said they didn't like any boys/girls, they would be called sexist and yelled at by other students.
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DeleteI was reading through this comment and the replies and I already had a brief idea in my head that I would reply about how I don't seem to have these same memories of the trick questions and such. Which is weird because I went to public school, and everything happens there. But then I read Even's reply and that one definitely brings back memories.
DeleteFor me I think it was 4th or 5th grade instead of 1st, and I don't know if it was a sexual taboo or just really intense judgement. There wasn't like 'cootie' nonsense or anything like that, but there was so much about 'crushes' and who people 'like liked' and thinking back on it all is almost funny. There was no response to the "who do you like" or "do you like anyone" questions because if you liked someone then you were pretending to be older than you actually were (I remember being scoffed at because I was supposedly acting like a high schooler) or that person would never like you or something like that.
Does it make me a bad person if I laughed at the middle school anecdotes? But also, middle school was rough.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you still remember that fairly nondescript moment, and especially since you probably do at least in part because you said you'd remember. It seems like how we reconstruct the past, and especially our past selves, is to a certain extent completely random -- I too remember the most mundane of scenes with vivid detail -- but also determined to some degree by how we want to see ourselves. For example, I always saw myself as a pretty secluded and introverted child, so I tend to remember moments that support that story, even though looking back I attended my fair share of birthday parties and class parties like any other kid. That's not to say that I'm necessarily lying to myself when I overemphasize some aspects of my past over others, but I think it just helps most people to cement their own identities if they have clear-cut personal narratives mapped out for themselves.
Okay so the thing you said about telling yourself you would remember a specific moment, and now you do, kinda made me mad. I think it is really cool that you did that, but it reminded me that I have said that same thing to myself, probably a few times. Unfortunately, though I remember telling myself that, I cannot remember the actual moment. I do also remember remembering telling myself that I would remember something, and at that time actually remembering the thing I told myself I would remember, so I guess it worked for me a little bit, and in like a month that moment may randomly pop into my head, but for now I am merely foiled by my own neurons or synapses or whatever brain stuff is going on up there.
ReplyDeleteI too think that it's interesting that you get to see how another matures with age, and how it's fun to see the habits you do be repeated in the book. However, I don't know about you, but my connection with Stephen is limited. The age where he is now, I don't understand him at all. Just with the same mindset of seeing myself in Stephen, I hope that I will splinter off from Stephen before I get to where he is. So that when I read this book years later, I will not go, oh yeah I remember when I self condemned myself.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of difficult to say this because I don't want to diminish your experiences, nor do I want to come across as conceited, but I think a lot of us can relate to Stephen's earlier childhood. All of us grew up with above average intelligence and reading about it is really interesting because, as you said, we can see it happening to someone else who is somewhat similar. I have a feeling you're going to come across a lot of similar feelings throughout the course, because the whole concept of coming-of-age novel is depicting this maturity process, and we get to see a new perspective though a new set of eyes (a new mind) every time we read a book.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kavi here, all of us have some unique thing about us that made us feel sort of like Stephen. During the party scene, later in the novel, Stephen was sitting in the corner feeling above all of the other kids. Coming from a public school, once again, like many others, I too felt like I was better than the rest of the kids at any party that I did go to. I guess it didn't help that I skipped first grade, a grade which I feel is completely useless anyways.
ReplyDeleteI feel ya man. Skipping two grades, I am all too familiar sitting away from everybody else. It wasn't as much the feeling that I'm superior to others, but that others despised of me.
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