A Strong Character

When I first started reading this novel, I assumed Stephen would be a quiet little boy who would never have the guts to stand up for himself. This was because one of the first passages in the book mentioned him being bullied into the dirty ditch. However, I later realized that my assessment of Stephen's character was wrong when I got to the scene where Stephen goe to the rector and tells him how he was wrongfully punished by the prefect of studies. When I reread this passage, I noticed that Joyce incorporates his love for repetition during this scene in the novel. In fact, on pages 53 and 54, he mentions how the punishment was "unfair and cruel" at least four times using those exact words. At this point, I found myself mentally comparing Stephen to Tambu. Joyce's description of how Stephen is fixated on the unfairness of being humiliated and beaten is what makes him different from the way Dangarembga portrays Tambu in the "Book of Not." Dangarembga shows that Tambu is upset by Dick stealing her work but does not show Tambu contemplating on how unfair it is. As we already mentioned previously, Tambu did not complain about the unfairness of it all because she had lost all hope by that point and did not think it would make a difference. Stephen, on the other hand, is young and naive. His spirit of rebellion has not yet been broken and so he thinks that standing up for himself will make a difference. I have not yet finished the novel but I hope to find that this spirit of Stephen is not broken.