Stephen Dedalus is a young man lost in the world; he spends most of his life in religious schools, divorced and separated from his family and his parents. The heads of the schools, the Fathers, become the real fathers of him. When he is at university, he remembers not his family but “Father Arnell … at Clongowes”, and his soul becomes “a child’s soul again” (116). The most frequent memory of him in his childhood is church, and religion becomes his parents. The teachings of the Church have been instilled so deeply in his mind that they become his identity. However, at the end of chapter three he begins to slide into a life of sin and begins to separate himself from the church. He is annoyed by the “dull piety and the sickly smell… the hypocrisy of others”, language that echoes his thoughts towards his real parents in later chapters (111). His break with the church reflects the typical adolescent rebellion of a normal family. Instead of the typical forms of rebellion, Esteban’s show of solidarity comes in the form of continual sins that shame him so much that he cannot imagine going back even if he wanted to, destroying his last father figure. The emptiness left by his lack of parental authority leads him to a childish state and to the brothel, where he asks his prostitute to “hold him in her arms” like a child (107).
However, through a mixture of threats and promises of salvation, the preacher’s sermon encourages Esteban to atone for his sin and reunite with God, Esteban’s father, and the Virgin Mary, Esteban’s mother. Earlier, after ignoring the Church, Stephen tried to follow the example of his biological father (who was known to be a ladies’ man). Stephen leaves the most controlling structure of his life to attempt to forge his own separate identity as a thinker and artist. He believes that sin and rebellion will “transfigure” him (61). However, once he realizes his sin, he considers himself “not worthy to be called a son of God”, and wraps himself in blankets as if he were a child hiding from a father’s gaze. angry (148). He then confesses to a Father, whom he equates to God, his heavenly father. The Virgin Mary follows her image of the perfect woman, although she avoids all those who are in the church, the image of her “kept his soul captive”, because she represents the supreme woman, the perpetual mother, of whom he is not angry but embarrassed. opposite (112).