Stephen Dedalus' passive nature can be seen throughout A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. When Stephen is a young boy at Clongowes, he is on the outside of other students' conversations, singled out as younger and more naïve than the other boys. As early as Chapter I, we get an idea that Stephen is usually apart from the crowd. On page four, Joyce describes Stephen as "on the fringe of his line, out of sight of his prefect, out of the reach of the rude feet, feigning to run now and then," during a rugby match with his classmates. In addition to often being alone and physically distant from the other boys, Stephen lets others do most of the talking when he is at school, as well as when he is at home. The Dedalus family Christmas in Chapter I is further evidence of Stephen's position as separate from others. At the Christmas dinner, Stephen fits in with neither the adults nor the kids. It is his first year sitting at the adults' dinner table, so he isn't with the other children, but he doesn't fit in with the adults either. As his father and Dante are arguing about religion and politics during their meal, Stephen adds little to the conversation and spends his time thinking about other things.
Later scenes in the book show Stephen's contemplative, passive personality too. Toward the end of Chapter II, Stephen wants to be encountered by his idea of Mercedes, and wanders around neighborhoods evidently hoping a prostitute approaches him. During the scene when Stephen is in the room with the prostitute, Joyce's choice of words illustrates Stephen's passive role and emphasizes the idea that an external force is controlling Stephen's actions. While the prostitute is doing most of the moving and talking in this scene, Stephen wants to be held and "his lips would not bend to kiss her." The way Joyce describes Stephen here is reminiscent of Stephen's younger days when he does not interact much with others, and it introduces the idea that an outside force may be what influences Stephen's actions.
This theme that some uncontrollable, external force affects Stephen's behavior continues into the last chapter of the novel. Though it appears that Stephen is more directly deciding his fate in Chapter V than he was in Chapter II, there is still a sense that he has a special calling to fulfill. Stephen's choice to leave Ireland may seem to be a decision made solely by Stephen, but I see it as more of a way for him to live up to his vocation that the novel works toward. Stephen's epiphany about art at the end of Chapter IV is entirely out of his control, and Joyce depicts the scene in a way that shows Stephen's passivity:
"His heart trembled; his breath came faster and a wild spirit passed over his limbs as though he were soaring sunward. His heart trembled in an ecstasy of fear and his soul was in flight. His soul was soaring in an air beyond the world and the body he knew was purified in a breath and delivered of incertitude and made radiant and commingled with the element of the spirit."
I see this moment in Stephen's life, in addition to the time in the next chapter when Stephen tells Cranly he wants to leave Ireland, as Stephen simply going along with what his soul is set out to do. Stephen accepting his vocation as an artist is a culminating point of the novel because moments illustrating his passive behavior around his classmates, family, and women have hinted at the fact that Stephen likes waiting for things to act upon him.
