Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man

   James Joyce's "Potrait of an Artist as a Young Man" counters my past readings which contend overcoming adversity requires outside help. Frustrated and confused about his unorthodox, artistic personality, Stephen seeks "outside help" in all manner of places: his father, prostitutes, and the Virgin mary/ the Church. However, Stephen seems to come to terms with himself, and accepts both his religious and sensual tendancies without assitence nor guidence.
   This basically ruins everything. I can't write an essay argueing it is neccessary to have outside help when overcoming adversity with the glaring exception of Sthphen Daedalus illustrating the antithesis to my claims. What enabled Stephen to prevail over his internal struggle without any help? In ohter words, why couldn't he be whiny and helpless like Rodia and King Lear?
   I think the answer lies primarily in his creative and artistic character. His artistic development would not have been authentic or successful if he had not grown and matured on his own.
   Also perhaps, he did have outside help, but instead of it coming from one source at one time it was the amalgamation of the aforementioned disperate experiences which collectively represent the source of his outside help.

Beloved Big Question

Beloved by Toni Morrison demonstrates the emotional consequences of struggling with adversity and lacking a source of support.

Sethe's recovery from the death of her nameless infant and the pain of her past as a slave was dependent on Paul D, a dependence which deteriorated when Beloved forced him out of the house.

Beloved's jealousy of Howard and Buggs (who survived their mother's attack) drove the boys away. After reappearing, Beloved attempted the same thing with Paul D, who was sincerely trying to soothe Sethe's pain and quiet the spirit at 124. Intent on having Sethe to herself, Beloved made it impossible to enter more and more areas of the house, effectively chasing him off after their encounter in the barn. Paul D departure is marked physically in the book by the disappearance of punctuation, which mirrors the sense of loss of reality in the text itself. Without Paul D's presence, Sethe gives herself over to Beloved entirely, surrendering to the negative past she had hitherto refused to succumb to.

In the case of Beloved, the ghost Beloved was a physical reincarnation of past adversity and Paul D represented the force that would have assisted Sethe in prevailing over her adversity.

The Stranger

A trend has prevailed throughout the novels I have explored in this project. Oedipus tried (but ultimately failed) to overcome the adversity he encountered after realizing the truth of his birth parents for his family and his country. Rodia prevailed over his internal struggle with inspiration from Dunya and direction from Sonia. Edgar aassists Gloucester in surviving the despair of his blindness and past mistakes. Cordelia attempts to heal the weakened Lear and help him overcome adversity by forgiving  him. In every case, a loved one has been integral in a protagonist overcoming adversity, indicating perhaps that prevailing over adversity requires and outside source of motivation.
I think similar logic can be applied to Camus' The Stranger. Meursault does not overcome his adversity. The end of the novel finds him miserable and frustrated, with hope only that "cries of hatred" will greet him at his execution. One of Meursault's dominate traits is his indifference. He is emotionally detached from his surroundings, job, and most significantly, the people around him. Not even his mother's death, taking the life of another man, or separation from his love interest, Marie, induce any feeling. I believe it is Meursault's detachment and lack of relationships that cause him to fail in the face of adversity.
Odeipus, Crime and Punishment, and King Lear bear a commonality in the manner in which their protagonist attempt to overcome adversity. Contrarily, The Stranger is an example of a character lacking the tools imperative to defeating adversity.