The Journal Entries

[Dark Muse]

I was a bit thrown off by the ending of the story in which it seemed rather out of nowhere these journal entires were just thrown in as the last few pages of the book.

[Victoria2133]

I assumed that these were representative of Stephen finding his own voice as a writer. Follow his compositions through the book. He tries to write a poem to Emma Clery in the style of Byron and can't get past the title ("To E--- C---"). He then writes the villanelle. At least he can produce something this time, but still it follows a strict form and is pretty characteristic of standard teenage poetry. (Joyce kind of pokes fun at himself there.) By the end of the novel, Stephen has cast off all crippling responsibility to family, creed and nation and is able to write freely in his own voice about that which goes on around him. We're finally seeing Stephen through his own words rather than through the words of a narrator.