What Themes Are Explored In A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man?

My mother was the best portrait artist in the police station. She had a strong sense of justice and brooked no evil. However, all I got was a sharp retort when I called her to save me. "You know it's your sister's coming-of-age celebration today, and you're cursing her? Kidnapped, are you? Fine, the kidnappers can kill you for all I care." She assumed it was a prank call. So, she refused to go to the police station and do her job. I wasn't saved in time and was tortured to death. When the DNA report came out, she came to the scene all wobbly. She drew a portrait of me with my bones as reference, her hand trembling all the way. "Jessica? It can't be her. This is a mistake!" She tried again and again. Yet, it didn't matter how many times she redid it as the portrait showed my face. My mother, who had hated me my whole life, teared up.

I was a sketch artist acting for the police. On a secret mission, I was discovered by a murderer. My eyes were gouged out, and my body was dismembered, unceremoniously dumped in a garbage bin. On the brink of death, I called my boyfriend, a criminal investigator. However, he hung up on me because he was busy accompanying his first love to a prenatal checkup. A few days later, he received a painting that was a vital clue to finding the murderer, but he thought I was playing tricks on him. In his anger, he tore that portrait to shreds. After he found out the truth, he spent the whole night searching through the garbage to piece it back together.

Stealing from desperate men is easy for Xania, but what happens when she steals from the wrong one? Theo, a billionaire's son who makes a name for himself, unlawfully, and Xania, whose slippery fingers dug into the wrong pocket. The duo are wrong in every way, but they can't fight the attraction they feel for each other.

Jessica’s fairytale love story comes to a tragic end when her husband and first love cheats on her with his ex-girlfriend. Jessica is forced to leave the marriage which has become a cold and loveless one. She leaves and has a surprise pregnancy 1 month later which she decides to keep secret. Fate gives her a second chance at love when she saves the life of a billionaire and ends up falling for his charm and sophistication. It wasn’t without obstacles however. Her ex-husband returns when he learns he has a child with her. Out of jealousy, he kidnaps the child and peddles lies against Jessica to the billionaire. In a twist of events, Jessica gets to know that her ex-husband’s lover, Gwen, is connected to the  organization that tried to kill the billionaire. Jessica has two options: to give up on another chance of finding true love or fight for love against the opposition. 

I fell in love with a cold, taciturn tattoo artist named Henry Kane. So I deliberately damaged my tattoo again and again, picking at the skin and reworking the design, just to see him a few more times. By the third visit for touch-ups, scrolling comments suddenly appeared before my eyes: “I’m dying of laughter. This desperate female lead literally destroyed her freshly tattooed skin just to see the male lead again, and she still didn’t dare confess her feelings.” “Henry Kane is actually the embodiment of an ancient ferocious beast who sat on mountains of gold and silver but refused to spend them, choosing instead to open a tattoo studio to experience mortal life.” “He looks icy and distant, but his possessiveness has long since maxed out.” “He was just afraid his violent nature would scare his woman away.” I looked at the man in front of me, who was lowering his head as he wiped down the tattoo machine, and he did indeed give off an unmistakable keep-your-distance aura. But the comments claimed that he wanted to possess me? “Um… Excuse me?” The man tilted his head slightly, and under the weight of his deep gaze, the confession lodged in my throat. My mind short-circuited, and I blurted out, “I… I wanted to tattoo it on my lower back this time.” In an instant, the comments exploded in joy. “Woohoo! We’re taking off!” “Lower back, you say? That’s a sensitive spot! Can this pure-hearted ferocious beast really hold back?” “Good grief, straight to the undressing scene! This cunning move by the female lead is operating on a whole other level!” The man’s hand gripping the tattoo machine jerked to a sudden stop, and the air seemed to freeze for a few seconds. Then he answered, his voice slightly hoarse and unreadable, “Alright.”

After my mother passed away, my father's lover brought her daughter, Winona Sweeney, into our family. From then on, I became the most hated person in the entire family. To protect myself, I became arrogant, withdrawn, and grew into a thorny rose — beautiful, but no one was allowed to approach me. I no longer believed in love. When I was once again subjected to cold violence and isolation at the banquet, Cameron Payne openly declared his love for me to everyone and said that he would break the necks of anyone who slandered me! He pursued me openly, gave me a grand wedding, and announced his love for me to the whole world. Everyone envied me. Then, when a fire broke out during my father's birthday party, I almost died inside. No one from my family tried to save me; it was Cameron who saved me. When I woke up in the hospital, I heard a horrifying truth. "I know I mistook Hazel for my savior. It's my mistake and I will make it up to Winona. But that doesn't mean you can hurt Hazel!" Cameron was furious. "But Winona's leukemia can't wait; she needs a transplant immediately..." My father chose to sacrifice me for his illegitimate daughter. "That doesn't mean you can hurt Hazel! The baby is only seven months old; a premature birth can be fatal!" Those things I thought were signs of love turned out not to be for me from the very beginning. In that case, I would help him fulfill his debt to Winona.