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An analysis of one’s language, the dress of thoughts, can tell one’s inner world. This thesis probes into Stephen Dedalus’s artistic and spiritual growth, focusing on his inner speech and vocal language. Young Stephen, like each ordinary boy born in Ireland at that time, leads a quiet and peaceful life, irrelevant to alienation from family, religion and country. As time goes by, he deviates from the proper course that he has been expected to take. The fall of Parnell makes him begin to suspect religion. At Clongowes Wood College, he is teased and laughed at by his classmates; his efforts to orally or physically participate in them are futile and he is pandied by the prefect of studies because of his argument about his broken glasses. There, Stephen is robbed of his rights to reveal his thoughts freely and faithfully. Helplessly and hopelessly, he, at the age of 16, makes intercourses with the prostitutes, in whose laps, he finds artistic inspirations. And exchange with Emma spurs his writing ambitions. After that, he epiphanizes to exile for art when he spiritually talks with the wading girl. Another important female, his beloved mother, a devout Catholic, also lends a hand in his way to art. College life turns him more mature with art. He badly wants to break away from a variety of nets, one of which is language. He hates to speak Latin and English. In the conversations in these languages, he elaborates his aesthetic principles originated from Aquinas: wholeness, harmony, and radiance. It is no doubt that no one can apprehend him. As a result, he is more and more alienated. Finally, he chooses to exile for art after suspicions and hesitations.
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