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”
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.
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 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.
The boy is haplessly subject to the city’s dark, despondent conformity, and his tragic thirst for the unusual in the face of a monotonous, disagreeable reality, forms the heart of the story. The narrator’s ultimate disappointment occurs as a result of his awakening to the world around him and his eventual recognition and awareness of his own existence within that miserable setting. The gaudy superficiality of the bazaar, which in the boy’s mind had been an “oriental enchantment,” shreds away his protective blindness and leaves him alone with the realization that life and love contrast sharply from his dream (Joyce). Just as the bazaar is dark and empty, flourishing through the same profit motivation of the market place, love is represented as an empty, fleeting illusion. Similarly, the nameless narrator can no longer view his world passively, incapable of continually ignoring the hypocrisy and pretension of his neighborhood. No longer can the boy overlook the surrounding prejudice, dramatized by his aunt’s hopes that Araby, the bazaar he visited, is not “some Freemason affair,” and by the satirical and ironic gossiping of Mrs. Mercer while collecting stamps for “some pious purpose” (Joyce). The house, in the same fashion as the aunt, the uncle, and the entire neighborhood, reflects people
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.
... quest ends when he arrives at the bazaar and realizes with slow, tortured clarity that Araby is not at all what he imagined. It is tawdry and dark and thrives on the profit motive and the eternal lure its name evokes in men. The boy realizes that he has placed all his love and hope in a world that does not exist except in his imagination. He feels angry and betrayed and realizes his self-deception. He feels he is "a creature driven and derided by vanity" and the vanity is his own. At no other point in the story is characterization as brilliant as at the end. Joyce draws his protagonist with strokes designed to let us recognize in "the creature driven and derided by vanity" a boy who is initiated into knowledge through a loss of innocence who does not fully realize the incompatibility between the beautiful, innocent world of the imagination and the very real world of fact. In "Araby," Joyce uses the boyhood character with the manhood narrator to embody the theme of his story. Joyce, James. “Araby”. Literature and It’s Writers.
James Joyce’s short story, "Araby" is simply a story about an unnamed narrator’s first love. But in the roots of the short story is the setting of the toxic world he lives in that crushes his blooming pubescent. The title suggests, Mangan’s sister’s “brown figure” and the bazaar are exotic to this young boy who is blind to the reality of the world he lives in and they entice him. He will quickly realize the dream he is living in will be pushed away by the unforgiving nature of his world. North Richmond Street, where the narrator lives, is described using metaphors and shows the narrator's world he inhabits.
The boy sees the bazaar at Araby as an opportunity to win her over, as a way to light the candle in her eyes. However, the boy is more awkward then shy, his adolescence is an impediment to his quest and he lost for words to speak. I vividly recall those times in my young life, driven by desires and struggling with the lack of experience to get through the moment.
The narrator alienated himself from friends and family which caused loneliness and despair, being one of the first themes of the story. He developed a crush on Mangan's sister, who is somewhat older than the boys, however he never had the confidence to confess his inner-most feelings to her. Mentally, he began to drift away from his childlike games, and started having fantasies about Mangan's sister in his own isolation. He desperately wanted to share his feelings, however, he didn't know how to explain his "confused adoration." (Joyce 390). Later in the story, she asked him if he was going to Araby, the bazaar held in Dublin, and he replied, "If I go I will bring you something.' (Joyce 390). She was consumed in his thoughts, and all he could think about was the upcoming bazaar, and his latest desire. The boy's aunt and uncle forgot about the bazaar and didn't understand his need to go, which deepened the isolation he felt (Borey).
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.
The marketplace scene in “Araby” offers vivid metonymies for the boys’ world (Murphy). He describes the scene with phrases such as being “jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of laborers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys.” The setting of the story provides much for the imagery. The narrator describes the sky in the beginning of the story as “ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns” (Joyce 169). The street the narrator lives on is described as blind and a “quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers’ School set the boys free,” which, again, shows how dull the neighborhood is.
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.