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Allusion
Explanation and Analysis—Birds:
In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, birds are often associated with changes, journeys, or gods. This motif also reminds the reader of Stephen's lofty aspirations. In Chapter 5, Part 3, Stephen observes a flock of birds:
They came back with shrill cries over the jutting shoulder of the house, flying darkly against the fading air. What birds were they? He thought that they must be swallows who had come back from the south. Then he was to go away? For they were birds ever going and coming, building ever an unlasting home under the eaves of men’s houses and ever leaving the homes they had built to wander.
Their "unlasting home" clashes with Stephen's wish to create something everlasting. He does not simply want to "come and go" like a bird; he desires artistic immortality. However, Stephen does resemble a bird in that he also desires freedom. Thus, this motif serves to support a range of themes including evanescence, freedom, and loftiness. It also subtly alludes to the myth of Icarus, who flies on feathered wings before plunging to his death into the sea. In the ancient world, some people believed in augury (divination by the flight patterns of birds). Stephen implicitly references this practice when he searches for meaning in his observation of birds.
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