Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Stephen is the perfect example of the answer to my question. The entire novel is the story of his own self discovery from childhood to his early twenties. The minute memories that he recalls and writes about have a huge effect on the person he evolves into. As said by Stephen, "The past is consumed in the present and the present is living only because it brings forth the future" (Joyce 227). The life we live has a huge impact on the way we live out the present. It also greatly effects the directions we decide to pursue. Stephen is an artist, he is a writer, but he does not clearly decide how to live his life until his early twenties. He spends pages and pages discussing his small meetings with girls or pondering of words in his school. His constant wondering drives him in to understanding by the end of the novel. His life growing up in Catholic schools, sinning with prostitutes, and then falling completely in to faith, in turn drives him away from religion and towards his own spirituality. The university then drives him out of Ireland and towards the rest of his life. Stephen is an example of the idea that the huge events in life are not the only forming factors of our identity, it is also those small dispersive memories that have a great impact on the way we live our lives and who we become.