James Joyce`s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is self-reflexive in that the process of his writing, re-reading, and re-writing is woven into the fabric of his fictional world. Joyce also shows a lively concern with language. For Joyce, as for Stephen Dedalus, language is not merely a medium of communication but a crucial means through which he catches glimpses of the real world about him. Joyce`s awareness that words are charged with historical, religious, and cultural connotations is inscribed in his aesthetics, which emphasizes the multiple meanings and formal possibilities of a work of art. Stephen`s aesthetic theory in A Portrait regards the dramatic mode as the highest form of art because in this form the artist, like the God of the creation, is able to remain within or behind or above his handiwork. Stephen also describes the gradual loosening of the bonds that held him captive in his youth. He frees himself from his family, his country, and from the church, to which he owes his education. His aim is the unfettered freedom and autonomy of the artist. Joyce employs various techniques and artistic strategies to capture the organized composite structure of his fiction which creates an internal unity. A Portrait`s aesthetical structure is articulated by a complex of echoes, cross-references, repeated phrases, parallels, recurring images and symbols, which reinforce the theme of `alienation` in this novel. The structure of the novel shows that Joyce is far beyond Stephen.