The Artist's Portrait of a Young Man

My big question related to why evil is attractive. This novel centered on this point almost continuously. Stephen is constantly driven towards the path of sin and pleasure, albeit the fact that he has been raised in religious settings all his life which condone such behavior. For some reason Stephen is unable to escape this pull towards the evil side of life, preffering the warmth and pleasure of a woman rather than the security and stability of the church. Throughout the novel Stephen constantly weighs the pros and cons of each choice, consistently finding less and less pros for staying with the church. In the end his choice of following the path of evil was quite predictable, and seems to fit the characteristics imbued within all humankind. Not only did the path allow for personal freedom and constant pleasures, but it also allowed for Stephen to finally contemplate things which had before been unaccessible due to the churche's restrictive, ever watching eyes.