Self actualization in the text" Portrait of the Artist as young man"

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is not generally considered a "coming of age" novel as such. Joyce intended the book to have a wider scope, and the novel encompasses more than the brief time-scale - often just a single school year or a summer - that usually marks the "coming of age" genre. In Joyce's novel, the chronology spans approximately twenty years, as we follow the central character, Stephen Dedalus, from his very early childhood to his college years. Nonetheless, there are a number of typical "coming of age" elements here. Among them are young Stephen's growing consciousness of self-identity and of family problems, his increasing understanding of the rules that govern the adult world, and, later, his keen awareness of and preoccupation with the mysteries of sex.