James Joyce, an Irish novelist, wrote fifteen short stories that depict Irish middle class life in Dublin, Ireland during the early years of the twentieth century. He entitled the compilation of these short stories Dubliners. The protagonist in each of these stories shares a desire for change. This common interest motivates the protagonist and helps them to move forward in their lives. Additionally, the protagonist has an epiphany, or moment of realization or transformation. In “Araby”, the narrator is an unnamed boy who has these same experiences. He deals with the mundane life of living in Dublin, Irealnd which causes him to desire change. When the narrator finally begins to experience changes in his life caused by the love he discovers, …show more content…
She adds a sense of excitement by introducing him to the bazaar, “The syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me” (Joyce 122). Attending the bazaar adds to his desire for change in his life. Araby presents a sense of escape for the boy to the East through the foreign objects he hopes to encounter at the bazaar. The bazaar gives the boy hope that he will be able to find an exotic gift to present the girl as a romantic gesture in hopes that its eastern features will impress her enough to win her love. However, the bazaar is nothing the narrator imagined, “The point of “Araby” is the glamor of the name, and the undeception of the small boy when he learns that it stands for a prosaic church bazaar” (Levin 34). The boy is disappointed when he comes to learn that the bazaar is nothing but an ordinary charity market. In actuality, Araby’s magical name reflects the underwritten feeling of “escapist orientalism, and the colonialism to which it was tied, of Middle-class Western Europe in the late nineteenth century” (Fairhall 250). The young boy is a representation of the population during this time period. His desire for change from the dullness of life in Dublin, Ireland reflects the feeling of confinement felt by its …show more content…
Struggling to even remember why he had ventured to the bazaar, he is filled with frustration and despair. Arriving late, there are not many stalls that are still open, but the narrator is able to find one. Instead of experiencing an oriental market full of foreign treasures, the narrator finds “porcelain vases and flowered tea-sets” (Joyce 124). Adding to the resentment he now feels towards the bazaar, he feels unwelcomed by the young lady who is running the stall because she is flirting with two young men with English accents and disregards him. The narrator leaves the stall without purchasing anything. The lights to the bazaar are being shut off and the boy is alone standing there with his eyes filled “with anguish and anger” (Joyce 125). It is at this moment the narrator experiences his epiphany, “As the lights go out, plunging him into darkness he realizes his blindness in mistaking puppy-love for passion” (Walzl 224). It is at this moment the narrator comes to understand the actuality of love. The concept of epiphany is usually associated with positivity, but the epiphany the narrator experience is negative, “His [the narrator] inability to buy even a trinket for the girl and his perception of the inanity of the flirtation he has just witnessed climax in an epiphanic vision, not of light, but of darkness” (Bowen 175). Instead of being enlightened by positivity, the
The protagonist of Araby is a young boy who is infatuated with his friend Mangan 's sister. The setting, and the introduction of the this woman is nearly identical to that in A&P. Joyce 's narrator spends his time “lay[ing] on the floor in the front parlour watching [Magnan 's sister 's] door” (Joyce 182). Immediately from the outset of the story, Joyce has rendered the narrator as someone who frivolously awaits his female interest with no other motivation. The main character then finally encounters Magnan 's sister personally, where she tells him about a bazaar near town called Araby. Joyce 's protagonist is shocked when Magnan 's sister “addresse[s] the first words to [him]” (Joyce 183) as he has spent a plethora of time yearning for an interaction with her. Joyce has implemented the idea into Araby that males are inherently reliant on females. Interestingly, Joyce has incorporated another male character in his story that is presented as inferior to his female counterpart. The purpose of the narrator 's uncle in the story is to slow the main character from going to Araby. The Uncle comes home much later than expected, and is chastised my his wife: “Can 't you give him the money and let him go? You 'v kept him late enough as it
“Araby” tells the story of a young boy who romanticizes over his friend’s older sister. He spends a lot of time admiring the girl from a distance. When the girl finally talks to him, she reveals she cannot go to the bazaar taking place that weekend, he sees it as a chance to impress her. He tells her that he is going and will buy her something. The boy becomes overwhelmed by the opportunity to perform this chivalrous act for her, surely allowing him to win the affections of the girl. The night of the bazaar, he is forced to wait for his drunken uncle to return home to give him money to go. Unfortunately, this causes the boy to arrive at the bazaar as it is closing. Of the stalls that remained open, he visited one where the owner, and English woman, “seemed to have spoken to me out of a sense of duty” (Joyce 89) and he knows he will not be able to buy anything for her. He decides to just go home, realizing he is “a creature driven and derided with vanity” (Joyce 90). He is angry with himself and embarrassed as he...
“What makes the protagonist in “Araby” a lonely person? Has he gained anything from his journey?” Advances in Language and Literary Studies 4.2 (2013): 93-95. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 22 Oct. 2016. Ko argues that the narrator, the boy, is a lonely person. In his analysis of the story, he addresses the boy’s coming of age, and states that, “he exits the bazaar with the loss of idealized image of Mangan’s sister and love,” which is a claim I make in my third point. Ko also quotes and explains the line, “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger,” a quotation which I have marked out to use in my third paragraph. It will be beneficial to support my opinion of this moment with Ko’s, that it is “the outcome derived from the transition of ages between childhood and adolescence”
The short story “Araby” by James Joyce is told by what seems to be the first person point of view of a boy who lives just north of Dublin. As events unfold the boy struggles with dreams versus reality. From the descriptions of his street and neighbors who live close by, the reader gets an image of what the boy’s life is like. His love interest also plays an important role in his quest from boyhood to manhood. The final trip to the bazaar is what pushes him over the edge into a foreshadowed realization. The reader gets the impression that the narrator is the boy looking back on his epiphany as a matured man. The narrator of “Araby” looses his innocence because of the place he lives, his love interest, and his trip to the bazaar.
In his brief but complex story "Araby," James Joyce concentrates on character rather than on plot to reveal the ironies within self-deception. On one level "Araby" is a story of initiation, of a boy's quest for the ideal. The quest ends in failure but results in an inner awareness and a first step into manhood. On another level the story consists of a grown man's remembered experience, for a man who looks back to a particular moment of intense meaning and insight tells the story in retrospect. As such, the boy's experience is not restricted to youth's encounter with first love. Rather, it is a portrayal of a continuing problem all through life: the incompatibility of the ideal, of the dream as one wishes it to be, with the bleakness of reality. This double focus-the boy who first experiences, and the man who has not forgotten provides for the rendering of a story of first love told by a narrator who, with his wider, adult vision, can employ the sophisticated use of irony and symbolic imagery necessary to reveal the story's meaning. The story opens with a description of North Richmond Street, a "blind," "cold ... .. silent" (275)street where the houses "gazed at one an-other with brown imperturbable faces.".(275) The former tenant, a priest, died in the back room of the house, and his legacy-several old yellowed books, which the boy enjoys leafing through because they are old, and a bicycle pump rusting in the back yard-become symbols of the intellectual and religious vitality of the past. Every morning before school the boy lies on the floor in the front parlor peeking out through a crack in the blind of the door, watching and waiting for the girl next door to emerge from her house and walk to school. He is shy and still boyish.
In the story of, "Araby" James Joyce concentrated on three main themes that will explain the purpose of the narrative. The story unfolded on North Richmond Street, which is a street composed of two rows of houses, in a desolated neighborhood. Despite the dreary surroundings of "dark muddy lanes" and "ash pits" the boy tried to find evidence of love and beauty in his surroundings. Throughout the story, the boy went through a variety of changes that will pose as different themes of the story including alienation, transformation, and the meaning of religion (Borey).
In James Joyce’s short story, “Araby,” the naïve romanticism the narrator has for the mysteriously alluring Araby bazaar and the seemingly pure sister of Mangan is symbolized by the grim reality of what the narrator truly desires. “Araby” is about a boy trying to buy something for a stranger with whom he is in “love” with. The boy has his reality crash down upon him once he realizes that his romanticized view of society is completely and utterly false. The narrator, being a child, has never actually experienced the real world and, therefore, has a very “childish” view of the world.
Although “Araby” is a fairly short story, author James Joyce does a remarkable job of discussing some very deep issues within it. On the surface it appears to be a story of a boy's trip to the market to get a gift for the girl he has a crush on. Yet deeper down it is about a lonely boy who makes a pilgrimage to an eastern-styled bazaar in hopes that it will somehow alleviate his miserable life. James Joyce’s uses the boy in “Araby” to expose a story of isolation and lack of control. These themes of alienation and control are ultimately linked because it will be seen that the source of the boy's emotional distance is his lack of control over his life.
The visual and emblematic details established throughout the story are highly concentrated, with Araby culminating, largely, in the epiphany of the young unnamed narrator. To Joyce, an epiphany occurs at the instant when the essence of a character is revealed, when all the forces that endure and influence his life converge, and when we can, in that moment, comprehend and appreciate him. As follows, Araby is a story of an epiphany that is centered on a principal deception or failure, a fundamental imperfection that results in an ultimate realization of life, spirit, and disillusionment. The significance is exposed in the boy’s intellectual and emotional journey from first love to first dejection,
Throughout “Araby”, the main character experiences a dynamic character shift as he recognizes that his idealized vision of his love, as well as the bazaar Araby, is not as grandiose as he once thought. The main character is infatuated with the sister of his friend Mangan; as “every morning [he] lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door…when she came on the doorstep [his] heart leaped” (Joyce 108). Although the main character had never spoken to her before, “her name was like a summons to all [his] foolish blood” (Joyce 108). In a sense, the image of Mangan’s sister was the light to his fantasy. She seemed to serve as a person who would lift him up out of the darkness of the life that he lived. This infatuation knew no bounds as “her image accompanied [him] even in places the most hostile to romance…her name sprang to [his] lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which [he] did not understand” (Joyce 109). The first encounter the narrator ex...
The narrator in “Araby” is a young man who lives in an uninteresting area and dreary house in Dublin. The only seemingly exciting thing about the boy’s existence is the sister of his friend Mangum that he is hopelessly in love with; “…her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.” (Joyce 2279) In an attempt to impress her and bring some color into his own gray life, he impulsively lies to her that he is planning on attending a bazaar called Arab. He also promises the gi...
The narrator has watched her from afar, suggesting his loneliness and unsureness in himself to act on his love. When he finally talks to her and is told of the bazaar she wishes to attend but cannot, he makes it his mission to go and bring her back a gift. The uncle's failure to arrive home in time for him to make it to the bazaar while it is still open shows the uncle’s lack of empathy and a dissociation of what is was like for him as a young boy in love. The narrator waits all night in the "imperturbable" house with its “high, cold, empty, gloomy rooms.”
The short story “Araby” was written by James Joyce and published as the last story in his collection of short stories entitled “Dubliners,” which concludes Joyce’s take on childhood adolescence (Barry). The story opens to the description of North Richmond Street in Dublin, Ireland, the narrator’s home. The narrator is a young, Catholic, Irish, boy that possess an infatuation of his school friends older sister. After a short conversation with his friend’s sister about the bazaar named “Araby” that is coming to town, he decides to win her affection by going to the fair and bringing her back a trinket. When he finally arrives at the bazaar, it is so late that the fair’s shops are closed or are in the process of closing.
I believe Araby employs many themes; the two most apparent to me are escape and fantasy though I see signs of religion and a boy's first love. Araby is an attempt by the boy to escape the bleak darkness of North Richmond Street. Joyce orchestrates an attempt to escape the "short days of winter", "where night falls early" and streetlights are but "feeble lanterns" failing miserably to light the somberness of the "dark muddy lanes"(Joyce 38). Metaphorically, Joyce calls the street blind, a dead end; much like Dublin itself in the mid 1890s when Joyce lived on North Richmond Street as a young boy. A recurrent theme of darkness weaves itself through the story; the boy hides in shadows from his uncle or to coyly catch a glimpse of his friend Mangan's sister who obliviously is his first love.
In many cultures, childhood is considered a carefree time, with none of the worries and constraints of the “real world.” In “Araby,” Joyce presents a story in which the central themes are frustration, the longing for adventure and escape, and the awakening and confusing passion experienced by a boy on the brink of adulthood. The author uses a single narrator, a somber setting, and symbolism, in a minimalist style, to remind the reader of the struggles and disappointments we all face, even during a time that is supposed to be carefree.