Master of others

Stephen's declaration in Proteus, "You will not be master of others or their slave," suggests that he has been reading German philosophical thoughts about self-realization. Theorization of the master-slave dialectic originated with Hegel, but many later thinkers took it up, including Nietzsche. Although Hegel and Nietzsche were engaged in very different philosophical projects, their thoughts about masters and slaves bear interesting connections to one another, and to Joyce.

John Hunt 2017

Oil portrait of G. W. F. Hegel by Jakob Schlesinger (1831), held in the Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Photographic portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche by Gustav Schultze of Naumberg, 1882. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Attack and Take of the Crête-à-Pierrot, engraving in M. de Norvins' Histoire de Napoleon (1839), after an original painting by Auguste Raffet. Source: Wikimedia Commons.