Faubourg Saint Patrice - ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University

where he had sinned and, though his ears were tightly covered, he heard.
(A Portrait 124)
Building on the horrific imagery of Arnell's sermon, Stephen's "soul" becomes its own
surveillant and reveals the power of his religious indoctrination. Neil Davison describes
this impact: "Stephen is afforded this vision when his eyes close and his inner-eye opens
. . . as a romantic, Stephen's inner-vision is stronger than his powers of sensual
observation" (Joyce's 85). Demonstrating the "ineluctable modality" of his Catholic
conscience, Stephen's "soul," similar to the omniscient God of Judeo-Christian doctrine,
bears witness to his hidden transgressions and will continue to plague him in Ulysses
(3.1).
Despite his youthful ambivalence, Stephen is portrayed by Joyce as an
uncommonly devout student, even being elected as "the prefecture in the college of the
sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary"--a position reserved for only the most devout
student by nature of "their virtues and their reputation for goodness" (A Portrait 98;
Sullivan 116)3. Sequestered to the confines of Clongowes Woods and then Belvedere,
Stephen, from the age of six, was subject to the regimentation of a strict, parochial
education. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault, himself a product of the Jesuits,
describes such regimentation processes that cause the subject to internalize the discipline
of those in power: "Place the bodies in a little world of signals to each of which is
attached a single, obligatory response: it is a technique of training, of dressage, that
despotically excludes in everything the least representation, and the smallest murmur"
(166). Similar to these rigid disciplinary procedures that Foucault outlines in his work,
the Jesuit-style education presented a "technique and a body of knowledge that could
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