“The snares of the world were its way of sin. He would fall. He had not yet fallen but he would fall silently, in an instant. Not to fall was too hard, too hard; and he felt the silent lapse of his soul, as it would be at some instant to come, falling, falling but not yet fallen, still unfilled, but about to fall.”
-James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, (pg. 175)
This passage was the split for me in the story’s tone with how his once very structured and formal speech reverted back to repeating phrases/words, dramatically long sentences, and how one thought took up a whole a paragraph. From this paragraph on the story reads in a very similar way to chapters 1 and 2 versus how it read during chapter 3 and the beginning of chapter 4 (older and more religious influenced Stephen).