Chapter 3

Every chapter in this novel makes you wonder where Stephen, our protagonist, is going to head towards next in his journey to discover his identity in the world. In this chapter, he approaches one of the more interesting and controversial aspects of life—religion and more specifically, sin.

Near the end of the last chapter, Stephen meets a prostitute and sleeps with her. Although it was his first experience of this sort, we see that this experience will quickly lead him to other worldly desires. Stephen is deeply fascinated with using his money to purchase happiness through food and physical pleasure. Despite his blatant indulgence in sinful activity, Stephen cannot avoid his connection with the church either. In fact, he initially seems to blend his two ways of living together.

For example, Stephen consistently confuses his spiritual life with his indulgent life. He has a strange devotion and attraction to the Virgin Mary, but also finds himself back with prostitutes every night. In both cases, the two different kinds of women allow him to find peace in an outside activity. This way, Stephen mixes sin and spirituality, unable to get a clear grasp on either.

However, this all changes when we get to the meaty part of the chapter: the sermon. Father Arnall's vividly descriptive sermon of the torments of hell and the consequences of sin obviously shock our young protagonist. It is at this point that Stephen seems to get a true understanding of how much his behaviors conflict with the ideals of the Catholic church. We get a look into the descriptions of Stephen's behavior, as well as his reactions to Father Arnall's teachings. Based on these reactions, our idea that Stephen is drastically different from the other boys (if we couldn't already tell in earlier chapters) is reinforced. While the other guys don't seem as shaken, Stephen is terrified of his fate and immediately switches his lifestyle around. It is unclear to me as to why this occurs. One can argue that it is because Stephen's sins are more severe than those of his peers, but I think that this is not the case, or even factually true. Instead, I believe that this unique reaction on his part merely reinforces the fact that our protagonist Stephen is an outsider to his society, and still has a long way to go until he can find his role and standing in his environment.