Comparative Analysis: 'Youth' And 'Portrait'

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The job of the artist is to revealing insightfully and selectively, the texture and content of human emotion-the joys, hopes and fears that characterize all of humankind. He possesses the power of observation, of reading through the human mind and of ‘escaping’ from his own personality in order to ingeniously create others. This intellect and insight place him in a position to reveal, in his own style, the ironies and patterns of human life. Yet when he attempts to look within his own complex and sensitive insides and attempts to divine the workings of these, a unique form of literature is created. The artist is full of contradictions and eccentricities, and various forces in conflict with one another drive his underlying motive of the ‘expression of inner beauty in visual form.’ James Joyce’s ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ is a unique journey that Joyce undertakes, to explore his own inner workings while maintaining as much objectivity as possible. And a similar work which deals with the artist from a different perspective is J.M. Coetzee’s 'Youth'. In both, the artist has introspectively used himself to paint a convincing portrait of the ‘Artist.’ Hence, though both are written in third person, they have been proclaimed by the authors themselves to be autobiographical in nature. ‘Youth’ depicts the struggle of art against utter misery. It largely deals with the ‘stream of consciousness’ style of writing. This means that for the most part, it ignores the notion of plot as defined by 18th century novelists- as being a purposeful progression of logically connected events. It largely deals with the workings of the mind of the protagonist; revealing the flow of thoughts, reactions and impressions, often loosely bond, through his mind. This often deters the casual reader from picking this book up. The theme of dismay and disappointment is often revealed
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