A movie’s success depends on how protagonists act. The same idea applies to a story; whether a story can attract people’s attention or not all depends on the character. People tell a story with a flat character makes readers easy to lose their attention. The same problem happens to me as well. A flat character is an uncomplicated character who does not have a substantial changes in the story. Compare to the flat character, a more complex character who have a dramatic changes in the story is called round character. Thus, I wanted to figure out how to make a round character by expressing him in a unique point of view.
The short story Araby, which tells a story of a young boy fell in love with a girl who he finally realized he cannot reach, written by James Joyce gives an excellent example on writing characters in a unique way. James Joyce uses a narrator point of view. How does a narrative point of view make character different? The life of James Joyce gives many insights about using of narrative technique, and the influence of the narrative techniques. In the story Araby, James Joyce uses the first person narrative perspective, and the advantage of first person narration including revealing the changing of the narrator’s mind, and giving implication to readers to make a complex personality of the character. Therefore, through these three points, people can create their ideal characters.
James Joyce was an influential Irish writer in the modernist Avant-grade of early 20th century. He was born in Dublin, a middle-class family. Joyce began to receive his education at Clongowes Wood College; however, after a couple years, his father cannot afford his education fees, so Joyce transferred to the Christian Brothers O’Connell School on...
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..."James Joyce’s Dubliners." Stories, British and American. Ed. Jack Barry Ludwig and W. Richard Poirier. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1953. 384-391. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 186. Detroit: Gale, 2013. Literature Resource Center. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
Nunes, Mark. "Beyond the 'Holy See': Parody and Narrative Assemblage in 'Cyclops'." Twentieth Century Literature 45.2 (1999): 174. Literature Resource Center. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
Mandel, Jerome. "The Structure of "Araby"" Modern Language Studies 15.4 (1985): 48-54. JSTOR. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
Walzl, Florence L. "Joyce's Dubliners: Substance, Vision, and Art by Warren Beck." Modern Language Journal 55.1 (1971): 40-42. JSTOR. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
Wells, Walter. "John Updike's 'A & P': a return visit to Araby." Studies in Short Fiction 30.2 (1993): 127+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
Stories about youth and the transition from that stage of life into adulthood form a very solidly populated segment of literature. In three such stories, John Updike’s “A & P,” Richard Wright’s “The Man Who Was Almost a Man,” and James Joyce’s “Araby”, young men face their transitions into adulthood. Each of these boys faces a different element of youth that requires a fundamental shift in their attitudes. Sammy, in “A&P”, must make a moral decision about his associations with adult institutions that mistreat others. Dave, in “The Man Who Was Almost a Man,” struggles with the idea that what defines a man is physical power. The narrator of “Araby,” struggles with the mistaken belief that the world can be easily categorized and kept within only one limited framework of thought. Each of these stories gives us a surprise ending, a view of ourselves as young people, and a confirmation that the fears of youth are but the foundation of our adulthood.
John Updike's “A & P” and James Joyce's “Araby” are very similar. The theme of the two stories is about a young man who is interested in figuring out the difference between reality and the fantasies of romance that play in his head and of the mistaken thoughts each has about their world, the girls, and themselves. One of the main similarities between the two stories is the fact that the main character has built up unrealistic expectations of women. Both characters have focused upon one girl in which they place all their affection. Both Sammy and the boy suffer rejection in the end. Both stories also dive into the unstable mind of a young man who is faced with one of life's most difficult lessons. The lesson learned is that things are not always as they appear to be.
Hunter, Cheryl. "The Coming Of Age Archetype In James Joyce's "Araby.." Eureka Studies In Teaching Short Fiction 7.2 (2007): 102-104. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
Written in 1914, James Joyce’s “Araby” is the tragic tale of a young boy’s first hopeless infatuation with a neighborhood girl. The young boy lives in a dark and unforgiving world.
In this essay I will discuss the short stories A&P by John Updike and Araby by James Joyce which share several similarities as well as distinct differences between the themes and the main characters. I will compare or contrast two or more significant literary elements from each of the stories and discuss how those elements contribute to each story’s theme.
Joyce, James. “Araby.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter Eighth Edition. Eds. Jerome Beaty, Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W.Norton.
Twentieth Century Interpretations of Dubliners. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: 1968. Torchiana, Donald T. Backgrounds for Joyce’s Dubliners. Allen & Unwin, Inc. Winchester, Massachusetts: 1986.
John Updike's A & P and James Joyce's Araby share many of the same literary traits. The primary focus of the two stories revolves around a young man who is compelled to decipher the difference between cruel reality and the fantasies of romance that play in his head. That the man does, indeed, discover the difference is what sets him off into emotional collapse. One of the main similarities between the two stories is the fact that the main character, who is also the protagonist, has built up incredible, yet unrealistic, expectations of women, having focused upon one in particular towards which he places all his unrequited affection. The expectation these men hold when finally "face to face with their object of worship" (Wells, 1993, p. 127) is what sends the final and crushing blow of reality: The rejection they suffer is far too great for them to bear.
In James Joyce’s Dubliners, the theme of escape tends to be a trend when characters are faced with critical decisions. Joyce’s novel presents a bleak and dark view of Ireland; his intentions by writing this novel are to illustrate people’s reasons to flee Ireland. In the stories “Eveline, “Counterparts”, and the “Dead”, characters are faced with autonomous decisions that shape their lives. This forlorn world casts a gloomy shadow over the characters of these stories. These stories are connected by their similar portrayal of Ireland. They clearly represent Joyce’s views on people’s discontent with Ireland.
Thomas, Steve. "Dubliners by James Joyce." ebooks@Adelaide. The University of Adelaide, 23 Aug 2010. Web. 20 Jan 2011
Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. New York: New American Library, 1991.
Joyce, James, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The Viking Press: New York, 1916.
Joyce, James. Dubliners. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The Portable James Joyce. Harry Levin, ed. Penguin. 1976, New York. Ulysses. Vintage, New York. 1961.
James Joyce began his writing career in 1914 with a series of realistic stories published in a collection called The Dubliners. These short literary pieces are a glimpse into the ‘paralysis’ that those who lived in the turn of the century Ireland and its capital experienced at various points in life (Greenblatt, 2277). Two of the selections, “Araby” and “The Dead” are examples of Joyce’s ability to tell a story with precise details while remaining a detached third person narrator. “Araby” is centered on the main character experiencing an epiphany while “The Dead” is Joyce’s experiment with trying to remain objective. One might assume Joyce had trouble with objectivity when it concerned the setting of Ireland because Dublin would prove to be his only topic. According the editors of the Norton Anthology of Literature, “No writer has ever been more soaked in Dublin, its atmosphere, its history, its topography. He devised ways of expanding his account of the Irish capital, however, so that they became microcosms of human history, geography, and experience.” (Greenblatt, 2277) In both “Araby” and “The Dead” the climax reveals an epiphany of sorts that the main characters experience and each realize his actual position in life and its ultimate permanency.
Peake, C.H. James Joyce: The Citizen and The Artist. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977. 56-109.