Right or Wrong?
In James Joyce’s novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , we see the main character, Stephen Dedalus, struggle with the idea of right and wrong. Throughout the first chapter, Stephen comes across several situations where he believes that there must be a right answer when, in fact, there is none. The first time we see Stephen struggle with this idea is when he is at Clongowes. In this scene, he is being bullied by Wells, who says “Tell us, Dedalus, do you kiss your mother before you go to bed?” At first, Stephen replies saying he does. But when the group of boys laughs at him, he changes his answer and says that he doesn’t. Still, the boys continue to laugh at him. This totally confuses Stephen and he thinks to himself “what was the right answer to the question? He had given two and still Wells laughed.” Stephen thinks that there must be one right answer to Wells’ question because there has to be a right answer to everything. Stephen doesn’t realize here that he is being bull