A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. Short summary

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Joyce describes a situation in which the prototypes of the writer’s real-life acquaintances became the characters. As a child, his father called the future author Boo-boo and added that he might be kidnapped by Moo-moo the cow.

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Joyce shares with the reader a story whose characters were prototypes of personalities that existed in reality. The Irish writer knew these people well.

When the author was a boy, his father used to take his son for walks in the nearby square. According to Joyce’s recollections, his father called him Boo-boo and told him that the boy might be kidnapped by a cow named Moo-moo, which sometimes came down from the mountains.

He says the aforementioned animal once moved down one street. A girl named Betty lived in the neighborhood. The latter was in the business of selling candy made from lemons.

The author writes of a time when Uncle Charles and a woman named Denty clapped their hands. The Irish writer states that they were older than his parents. Joyce adds that Denty was younger than Uncle Charles. According to him, this member of the fair sex used two toothbrushes (a brown one and a green one), which she liked to hide in her closet.