A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is above all a portrait of Stephen Dedalus. It is through Stephen that we see his world, and it is his development from sensitive child to rebellious young man that forms the plot of the novel. There are many Stephens, often contradictory. He is fearful yet bold, insecure yet proud, lonely and at the same time afraid of love. One Stephen is a romantic who daydreams of swashbuckling heroes and virginal heroines. The other is a realist at home on Dublin"s most sordid streets. One Stephen is too shy to kiss...
version of Stephen. Other portraits might add other information and focus on different aspects of his personality.

At the end of A Portrait of the Artist, will Stephen fly or fall? Joyce does not say. A later work, Ulysses, is in part a continuation of Stephen"s story, but even in this work Stephen"s final fate is not certain. With his complexities and contradictions, Stephen seems more like a living human being than a figure from a book. And who can know everything about another human being? Who can predict with complete certainty what that human being"s fate will be?