| James Joyce(1882-1941)is one of the most prominent Irish modernists in the early 20 st century.His works,rooting in the city Dublin,presents a spatial picture of the Ireland in the turn of 19th-20 th century.As Joyce’s first novel,A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,with its theme centering on the artist’s self-exile,depicts the protagonist Stephen’s growth process of being an artist with twists and turns under the constrains of family,religion and social environment,which is endowed with a relatively strong sense of spatiality and consistent with the interpretation of social spaces,landscape spaces and individual spaces of the spatial criticism.The thesis,taking Stephen’s self-exile as the object,probes into the reasons that lead to his self-exile as the only way for his artistic path from the perspective of spatial criticism.This thesis consists of three parts: introduction,body and conclusion.The introduction part gives a brief account of Joyce’ life and his literary career,and summarizes the domestic and foreign studies on the novel.The body part is separated into four chapters.Chapter One presents an overview of the developments of its theoretical basis through four stages.Chapter Two expounds on the root of Stephen’s self-exile,namely,the depression of social spaces,including the alienation of social relations,the oppression of social power and the loss of religious faith.Chapter Three explores the landscape spaces,the catalyst for Stephen’s self-exile from the point of the metaphor of natural landscape and urban landscape.Chapter Four discusses the shift of individual spaces,which constitutes the premise of Stephen’s self-exile.The conclusion part points out that space is of great significance to one’s life choice.Stephen’s self-exile is caused by a combination of social spaces,landscape spaces and individual spaces.Spatial criticism plays an important part in the identity construction of individuals in the modern society.The application of spatial criticism in the interpretation of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man provides not only a new perspective of study,but also references for the self-positioning of individuals in the modern social space. |
