James Joyce in his novel “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” says “The object of the artist is the creation of beauty”. (134) For Stephen Dedalus, after the recurring stream of consciousness during his youth, one of the factors in his creation as an artist is women. Indeed, it is the women in the novel who shape Stephen into the man he finds himself becoming towards the end. Six women in particular who serve specific functions in Stephen's life are: Stephen's mother, Eileen, Mercedes, the Virgin Mary, the prostitute, the bird-like woman by the water. These women influence and shape his character by loving, inspiring and charming him. The novel begins immediately with the idea of ​​a love between mother and son. Even at a young age Stephen is able to distinguish that his mother is a source of pure, whole love. “His mother smelled more pleasant than his father.”(1) Already at an early age the artist begins to form thanks to women, he begins to see beauty through the senses. “His mother placed her lips on his cheek; her lips were soft and wet his cheek; and they made a little noise: kiss."(7) This scene occurs very early on with Stephen's mother, Mary Dedalus, and throughout the novel it helps to teach him what is right and wrong, but above all to show him the ability to love and understand what must be loved unconditionally. Stephen's mother is also present in all the key moments of Stephen's life; in his departure for boarding school as a child, then in these cases she perhaps shows an overprotectiveness towards him in cleaning his ears once he became an adult, in advising him about friends and money throughout his youth while at...... middle of paper ......ption of the Virgin Mary, and for a long time the childish impulse to hide under a table. Because the woman at the seaside is truly the balance of all the women in front of him. “Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call. To live, to wander, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life from life!”(123) To recreate life, this is the true nature of an artist to recreate life so that others can see it through the eyes of another. The women Stephen meets on his journey to becoming an artist define and change him by nurturing, captivating, and inspiring him. Stephen was forever changed by his mother, the Virgin Mary, Eileen, the prostitute and the woman of the sea. The purpose of the artist is to create the object of beauty, I argue that it was the beauty in the women of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man that created the artist in the end.