Who was right then?

The links between politics and religion were brought across quite strongly in Portrait (which I felt weren't discussed enough by Jackson). At the Christmas dinner, the party talks about the death of Parnell who is an Irish Protestant and a nationalist politics leader. The conversation then turns to the idea of the Catholic Church meddling in state politics: Dedalus says “Nobody is saying a word against them…so long as they don’t meddle in politics; Dante retorts that the “bishops and priests in Ireland have spoken…and they must be obeyed” (35). The intermingling of politics and religion gets mixed up in individual relations, not only between grown-ups, but also between children, who must already learn to take sides. Dante discourages Stephen from playing with Eileen because Eileen was a protestant, and “when [Dante] was young she knew children that used to play with protestants and the protestants used to make fun of the litany of the Blessed Virgin” (39).

The argument over religion and politics becomes somewhat cyclical [if the priests didn’t interfere with politics, it will be fine; but the priests are important and if people didn’t disagree with them, it will be fine etc.] Stephen sums it up with, “Who was right then?” (40) When Stephen thinks about God, he remembers that “Dieu was the French for God” and “though there were different names for God in all different languages in the world…still God remained always the same God and God’s real name was God” (17). Everyone is right in some way or another, but the internal division that stems from politics, religion, and the effects of colonialism [how alliances with the British and the imposition of certain policies further fueled these divisions], passed on through generations, makes it impossible for any cohesive resolution.