The story of the childhood and youth of an Irish poet-scholar, Stephen Dedalus, who questions his Catholic faith as he reaches manhood in turn-of-the century Dublin.

A close examination of the story "After the race," which originally appeared in Dubliners that argues that the story represents a microcosm of some of the issues most central to Joyce scholarship: evolution as an artist, the Catholic Church, and nostalgia for a rapidly changing Ireland.

This study provides a critical introduction to Joyce's first two works, Dubliners and A portrait of the artist as a young man, and includes a selection of Joyce's observations about the works and excerpted commentaries from a number of critics.