Reading God/God Writing: The Irrational and Difficult Name

Abstract

One form of modernism’s contradictory rejection and acceptance of God is epitomized by James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The 1916 novel is divided into five chapters, each of which can be seen as a struggle to come to terms with changing ideas of God and language. In the first section, a young Stephen Dedalus, discovering the confusing world of language, explores the gap between signifier and signified, asking and searching for something solid to attach the sounds of words to. He ponders the words “belt,” “suck,” and “kiss.” (“That was a belt round his pocket. And belt was also to give a fellow a belt” [5].) He wonders what each one can possibly mean, and he questions the perplexing variety and gradations of definitions words can have. Joyce develops each of these words into themes, exploring their different meanings throughout the novel. Stephen will experience “kiss,” for example, as a kiss from his mother, a kiss from a prostitute, and as the feel of the Host on his tongue. Finally, Stephen explores the word God.

God was God’s name just as his name was Stephen. Dieu was the French for God and that was God’s name too; and when anyone prayed to God and said Dieu then God knew at once that it was a French person that was praying. But though there were different names for God in all the different languages in the world and God understood what all the people who prayed said in their different languages still God remained always the same God and God’s real name was God. (13, my emphasis)