Decisions and Suffering Anonymous 12th Grade

Icarus decided to fly too high. Stephen decided to sin. Icarus decided to fly too low. Stephen decided to pursue a more selfish path. Icarus fell. Stephen grew. Icarus’s story is a warning for any man with too much hubris. Stephen Dedalus, from The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, soars like Icarus and surrenders to temptation but in the end decides to grow in the face of suffering before he can fall. A person’s decision when they are faced with suffering leads to their growth or their surrender, this suggests that a person’s development is determined by their decisions.

Stephen’s decision to surrender to temptation and end the suffering of sexual frustration leads him into the identity of a sinner. Stephen does not feel free in his suffering. His faith and fear of committing sin smothers him, so when he finally surrenders he can finally feel some form of freedom, “…as he suffered the agony of its penetration…and the cry that he had strangled for so long in his throat issued from his lips. It broke from him like a wail of despair from a hell of sufferers…” (100) His occasion to surrender to his suffering from sexual frustration fuels his continuous surrender to this sin. The pleasure outweighs his faith as...