Women and race in the last two chapters of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

This paper sets out to show the close relation between the female characters in the last two chapters of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and post-colonial theories. Psychoanalytic interpretations interwoven with political analyses have been at stake in many other studies concerning the role of the mother (i.e. of Stephen Dedalus’ mother). 'e identification of this fundamental female character with Mother Ireland, with Mother Nature, with the Great Mother (and so forth) is as complex as hoary. Since this theme has been discussed at length in Joyce scholarship, the present paper, purposefully, will not deal with this aspect of the matter.