education by telling about schools, students, or the process of learning which is conducted by the characters within. In these works, the concept, reality, and even
dream about education are presented. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce is one of those
works which presents the discourse of education by telling story about a school life of a student. This novel dominantly tells about the criticism done by the main
character, Stephen Dedalus, toward the institution of Catholic religion. Stephen is also described facing some objections from his social circumstance toward his
desire of being an artist. These conflicts are wrapped in the story of Stephen’s school life. Therefore, the criticism done by Stephen is very closely related to the
circumstances of schools where he studied. This research relates the description about school in the novel with the
problem of repression toward students that happens in most of the schools. Description of school taken from the novel is an example that represents similar
condition in other schools. Such school is a Catholic school, managed by Jesuits congregation. Though, the discussion about this school in this research also exists
in most other kinds of school. As the reflection of the problem in reality, the description in the novel becomes the object of the analysis which leads to the
discussion about how such situation happened in the real school.
B. Problem Formulation
To be able to understand the novel and to discuss the research topic better, three problems were formulated as follows
1. How are the characters in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man described?
2. Through what parts of school system is the repression toward student characters in the story done?
3. How is the repression toward students revealed?
C. Objectives of the Study
This research aims to look and pay more attention to how a school continuously does repression toward its students in the condition where the people
are usually not aware of it. Specifically, there are three objectives presented. The first objective is to see the characteristics of the characters in the novel. The
second one is to find out how the institution of school with its system represses the students through some ways. The last objective is to prove whether such
actions are truly repressions by considering the criteria and impacts of a repression.
D. Definition of Terms
In this research, there are some terms which are frequently used. In order to understand them as close as possible to the meaning, the definition of those
terms are presented here. These descriptions also aim to give restriction to the terms’ various meaning so that the discussion is able to run well and focused.
1. Repression In An Introductory Dictionary to Lacanian Psychoanalysis,
repression is defined as: … the process by which certain thoughts or memories are expelled
from consciousness and confined to the unconscious. … Since repression does not destroy the ideas or memories that are its target,
but merely confines them to the unconscious, the repressed material is always liable to return in a distorted form, in symptoms, dreams,
slip of the tongue, etc. the return of the repressed. Evans, 1996: 168
2. School According to the Dictionary of Education, school is defined as:
an organized group of pupils pursuing defined studies at defined levels and receiving instruction from one or more
teachers, frequently with the addition of other employees and officers, and a staff of maintenance workers; usually housed in
a single building or group of buildings. Dictionary of Education Third Edition, 1973: 512
3. School system School system is defined as:
The aggregate of educational institutions organized under the constitution and laws of the state, administered under the
general supervision of the state department of education, deriving their financial support, at least in part, from the state,
and usually referred to as public schools, to distinguish them from private institutions of learning; usually includes
kindergartens, elementary schools, high schools, junior colleges, teacher-education schools, a state university, and an
agricultural and mechanical arts college; tax-supported and free to the public below the junior college level. Dictionary of
Education Third Edition, 1973: 516
9
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW
In order to respond the problems formulated, some reviews of related studies and theories are provided below.
A. Review of Related Studies
James Joyce started the project of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by writing an essay titled A Portrait of the Artist. “For Joyce, this ironic
autobiographical essay was an early attempt to synthesize his ideas about aesthetics, Ireland, religion, and the role of the artist” Bulson, 2006: 48. Out of
the essay, Joyce wrote the early version of the story under the title Stephen Hero. This attempt was continued in completing the script of the novel. It is then well-
known as the autobiographical novel since it has a similar story as Joyce’s personal life. Eric Bulson also states, “If Dubliners, as Joyce once said, represents
his “last look at Dublin”, Portrait is a “picture of [his] spiritual self”” 2006: 47. The main character in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man is a boy named Stephen Dedalus. The story tells about the journey of Stephen’s education in various schools. Generally, Stephen is a quiet boy along
his school time. He mostly stores all of his confusion in his own mind. From the beginning, Stephen, like most young people, is caught in a
maze, just as his namesake Daedalus was. The schools are a maze of corridors; Dublin is a maze of streets. The mind itself is a convoluted
maze filled with dead ends and circular reasoning. Life poses riddles
at every turn. Stephen roams the labyrinth searching his mind for answers. The only way out seems to be to soar above the narrow
confines of the prison, as did Daedalus and his son Braurer, 1985: 35.
Stephen is certainly influenced by the environment around him that he has such a complicated mind. Stephen is sceptical to questions of life. According to the study
above, there are some other common things in his life which represents that the way he has to go through in order to find the answers to the questions of life is
complicated. Since along this book Stephen is conducting school life, he has his
personal view on how school exists to him. Stephen then looks towards the priests at his school, but they are the
same priests that beat him for not being able to do his homework because his glasses were broken. In Stephens mind, anyone who
would lay out such unjust punishment could not be the worldly interpreters of any higher being that was really true and good. Stephen
still honours the priests, but cares nothing for what they preach http:www.literature-study-online.comessaysjoyce.html.2002.
The view that ‘teachers are always right and therefore students must obey them’ is criticized. Stephen considered his teachers as unjust persons according to his own
experience. This research discusses a different point from those previous studies. It
pays more attention to the schools where Stephen studied. In its daily activities, school does some actions of repression toward the students. It is a problematic
phenomenon but, it is considered as something common since it occurs frequently
