When the novel opens, we are in the mind of a child; fragmented lines from a nursery story are intertwined with sensations and associations of feeling, touching, hearing, and smelling. Joyce takes us inside the mind of a child in order to show us how a child records and responds to the world around him. By carefully choosing language and syntax, Joyce enables us to share what is possibly the earliest childhood memory of the novel's hero — Stephen Dedalus.
Stephen is only three years old when he begins to identify himself with the physical world, with members of his family, and with the sensual world of language; he remembers his father's hairy face, his mother's sweet smell, the uncomfortable experience of wetting the bed, and certain special and fanciful words, such as "baby tuckoo" and "moocow." It was a good time, he says, meaning that he felt safe and secure from harm. Significantly, his favorite song is about wild roses — not tamed, cultivated roses, but wild roses. His taste for rebellion and freedom has already budded.
Stephen's next memory occurs about three years later, when he attempts to compete athletically with a group of rowdy schoolmates at Clongowes Wood College, the Jesuit boarding school which he attends. By comparison with the other boys, Stephen is small and weak, and suffers from poor vision and painful homesickness. During these miserable days, he comforts himself with thoughts of home. As he thinks about these things, it is clear that Stephen is a lonely, sensitive young boy, one who loves learning and relies on the strength he receives from saying his evening prayers.
Stephen's first crisis at Clongowes occurs when Wells, a bullying classmate, pushes Stephen into the square ditch (a cesspool), causing him to be taken to the school infirmary to recover from a fever. While there, Stephen meets Athy, the likeable son of a racehorse owner; Athy confides to Stephen that he too has an unusual name. While Stephen is in the infirmary, he also meets the somewhat sad but compassionate cleric Brother Michael, who cares for sick boys and makes them feel less isolated by reading them the news in the daily paper.
