A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: Is Stephen Dedalus Really James The main debate that all critics had over this novel was whether or not Stephen Dedalus was, in fact, James Joyce. Maurice Beebe feels that Joyce, when creating Stephen, used some of his own characteristics but also tried to not make Stephen too much like himself. One way in which “Joyce sought to detach himself from his hero was to depict not just James Joyce, but the universal, archetypal artist.” In other words, Joyce wanted to make Stephen a stereotypical arti ....