'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' from the Perspective of Literary Anthropology

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Augsburg, course: English Literature, language: English, abstract: Stories can offer support in finding a position and orientation in the world, and thereby provide a foundation for one's identity. In this thesis, the uses of literature and fiction shall be examined with special regard to the questions of what further insights this may reveal about us as humans and about the psychological functions of narrative for the construction of an identity. It will be asked how and to what end our psyche and mind become unfolded in fiction and consequently, what this in turn reveals about the condition of being human. Drawing on different theoretical strands from the field of Literary Anthropology, the first chapter will be dealing with the work of Arnold Gehlen as a basis for later, in-depth textual analysis. His ideas are helpful for the explanation of how humans have evolved from mere instinct-driven animals to complex, self-reflexive creatures that have created a culture that uses symbols and the power of imagination in order to make sense of themselves and as a basis for action and productive orientation towards the future. This also paves the way for an examination of Wolfgang Iser's work, which will be consulted in order to find out how literature may come to resemble the primary medium reflecting and embodying human development as well as the unfolding and development of the self. Fiction and its aesthetic possibilities will be presented as a prominent way of exploring, understanding and expressing human needs. In the main part of this thesis, these findings will be applied to and discussed on the basis of James Joyce's 1916 novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. This is especially illuminating, because the novel deals with the topics of imagination, the functions of literature and the (self-) determination of identity on a content-level. Moreover, its self-reflexivity on a formal and aesthetic level refers back to the theoretical works of Gehlen and Iser, since by doing so the potential and/or limitations of Literary Anthropology may be embodied, highlighting some contradictions inherent to fiction. To conclude these discussions, a brief digression on the significance of narrative to personal identity as well as on the act of staging an identity will follow at the end of this paper.