Faubourg Saint Patrice - ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University

project their schema over the social body" (Discipline 168). In Stephen's case, the social
body is the Catholic schools of Clongowes Wood and Belvedere--a microcosm of Irish
culture. While under the watchful eyes of the Jesuits, Stephen is formed by these
multivalent forces which cause him to internalize the doctrine of those in power: the
discipline, regimented schedule, continued evaluation and ranking, surveillance, and
seclusion described by Foucault (Discipline 145-7). This rigid structure of Jesuit
dressage is indeed outlined as fact in Kevin Sullivan's work, Joyce among the Jesuits4.
Later, rebelling against the repression which he feels originates from this rigidly
structured education and his Catholic heritage, Stephen is unable to completely free
himself from its hold on his consciousness; he becomes torn between the guilt emanating
from his religious indoctrination and his artistic desire to "fly by those nets" which have
been intricately woven by his culture (A Portrait 177).
As noted earlier, Joyce, and likewise Stephen, was identified as possessing the
intellectual and spiritual depths which marked him as a potential cleric. Noting Stephen's
sensitivity, the director of Belvedere, in a rather blasphemous explanation of the role of
the cleric, attempts to seduce him with the secular and spiritual power of the priesthood:
No king or emperor has the power of the priest of God. No angel or
archangel in heaven, no saint, not even the Blessed Virgin herself has the
power of a priest of God: the power of the keys, the power to bind and
to loose from sin, the power of exorcism, the power to cast out from the
creatures of God the evil spirits that have power over them, the power,
the authority, to make the great God of Heaven come down upon the
altar and take the form of bread and wine. What an awful power,
Stephen! (Portrait 141)
Curiously enticing Stephen with the "powers" of the priesthood, the director insidiously
constructs his seduction to appeal to Stephen's evolving ego. A Jesuit critic, Robert
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