In Stephen Hero, the abandoned forerunner to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the undergraduate artist-hero attacks the Irish educational system and gives promise of his rebellion against it and the culture it represents:

Joyce’s repudiation of Catholic Ireland and his countering declaration of artistic independence are well-known and integral features of his life-long dedication to writing. Yet he was formed by the Ireland he repudiated and his quest for artistic freedom was itself shaped by the exemplary instances of earlier Irish writers who had, in his view, failed to achieve that independence which he sought for himself, an independence which was at once the precondition and the goal of writing.