James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882-1941) was an Irish novelist, and poet. He was a pioneer of the modern English novel. He used the stream of consciousness technique to perfection in Ulysses and in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. He enhances the effectiveness of the novel by using myths, imagery, and motifs. His four landmark works are Dubliners (1914), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), and Finnegans Wake (1939). This paper explores the theme of self-discovery in the novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, through Stephen Deadalus’s journey by rejecting the constraints to embrace his vocation as an artist. Stephen moves from a state of innocence to experience. He rejects the “nets” of nationality, language and religion which are hindrance to make him an artist.    The aim of Joyce in writing this book is to show the development of Stephen as an artist. Just as Daedalus flew away from his captivity in the same way Stephen wants to escape from bondage of family, nation and church. He works in freedom as an artist.