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You can't have a green rose
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“You Can’t Have A Green Rose”
By: Max Dickstein Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist addresses the conflict between cultural identity and individual identity. Stephen faces this dichotomy even in his early youth, although he lacks consciousness of it at this time. As he matures, Stephen realizes that his individualistic nature battles with culture; he fears that cultural identity classifies him as a part of a machine, leaving him no room for individuality. The state of his national culture exacerbates this circumstance; Irish culture is subject to other cultures such as British imperial culture. Stephen’s contemporaries only see the identity crisis in terms of the powers that are subjecting Irish culture; they believe that resisting British influence and restoring Gaelic culture are the solutions to the Irish identity crisis. Stephen believes that his contemporaries have addressed the issue improperly. He believes that Ireland’s identity problem does not lie only within its subjugated culture; although a part of the problem, he more importantly believes that culture as a whole subjugates the individual. In response, Stephen creates an identity independent of any wide-scale solidarity; he calls this identity the artist. This identity that he has created for himself relies on the creative intellect of the individual, which permits him to be a subject only to himself. Joyce detests the Irish emphasis on cultural identity and responds to it by creating the chara...
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