Comparison of Araby and The Garden Party

1260 Words3 Pages

In the introductions of James Joyce's Araby and Katherine Mansfield's The Garden Party the main themes of the stories are immediately introduced, as in any effective short story. Through the detailed descriptions of the settings, the central themes of each story are presented. The relationships between the main characters and their respective families are introduced and provide background information which helps to further understand the themes of each story. The main themes of the stories are further developed when the characters are introduced. In the introductions of Araby and The Garden Party the main themes are introduced through the descriptive settings, the family backgrounds, and the development of the main characters.

The theme of light and darkness is apparent throughout Joyce's Araby. The dark, sombre setting of the story creates a sense of hopelessness within the narrator, an unnamed young boy. The negative connotations associated with the city of Dublin are used to illustrate the narrator's state of hopelessness. It is only through his illusions that he is able to catch a glimpse of light amidst the darkness.

The introduction of Joyce's Araby immediately creates a dark, mundane setting for the story. The repetition of the word "blind" introduces the theme of light and darkness. The streets of Dublin are described as "being blind"(2236) suggesting they do not lead anywhere. The houses are personified as being sombre and having "brown imperturbable faces"(2236), creating the shift from a literal setting to a state of mind. The streets remain silent until the boys are set free from school (2236), comparing the school to a prison: mundane and repetitive, and comparing their departure from school to a type of li...

... middle of paper ...

...by and The Garden Party the themes are apparent throughout the introduction. In Araby the setting begins in a state of darkness introducing the main theme of light and darkness. Similarly, the beautiful setting described at the beginning of The Garden Party establishes the upper-class ranking of the Sheridan family, demonstrating class distinction. Although the two main characters are from different classes, the family backgrounds of each provide information which helps to further develop their themes respectively. The struggles which both characters face demonstrate character development and contribute to the themes of the stories. Both short stories prove to be literally effective in that they disclose the main themes at the outset of each story. Although the themes may alter over the course of the stories, they are clearly defined in their respective introductions.

Show More
Related

  • Similarities Between Araby And A & P

    545 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Arby

    1404 Words  | 3 Pages

    James Joyce's use of religious imagery and religious symbols in "Araby" is compelling. That the story is concerned somehow with religion is obvious, but the particulars are vague, and its message becomes all the more interesting when Joyce begins to mingle romantic attraction with divine love. "Araby" is a story about both wordly love and religious devotion, and its weird mix of symbols and images details the relationship--sometimes peaceful, sometimes tumultuos--between the two. In this essay, I will examine a few key moments in the story and argue that Joyce's narrator is ultimately unable to resolve the differences between them.

    Read More

  • araby and the things they carried

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    Stone, Harry. "Araby" and the Writings of James Joyce. N.p.: n.p., n.d. EBSCO. Web. .

    Read More

  • The Power of Araby by James Joyce

    1923 Words  | 4 Pages

    Norris, Margot. "Blind Streets And Seeing Houses: Araby's Dim Glass Revisited." Studies In Short Fiction 32.3 (1995): 309. Academic Search Complete. Web. 2 Apr. 2014.

    Read More

  • The Reality of World in Araby and Boys and Girls

    1184 Words  | 3 Pages

    The story “Araby” opens with a description of North Richmond Street. This gives reader the first view of the young boy's world. The Richmond Street “was a quiet street except.....the boys free” (Joyce 345). The young boy in “Araby” lives with his aunt a...

    Read More

  • James Joyce's Araby - Loss of Innocence in Araby

    874 Words  | 2 Pages

    In her story, "Araby," James Joyce concentrates on character rather than on plot to reveal the ironies inherent in 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 the story is told in retrospect by a man who looks back to a particular moment of intense meaning and insight. 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 dramatic 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.

    Read More

  • Themes of Alienation and Control in James Joyce's Araby

    1851 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Loss of Innocence in Araby by James Joyce

    853 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis Of Epiphany In Araby By James Joyce

    1298 Words  | 3 Pages

    He has grown up in the backwash of a dying city and has developed into an individual sensitive to the fact that his town’s vivacity has receded, leaving the faintest echoes of romance, a residue of empty piety, and symbolic memories of an active concern for God and mankind that no longer exists. Although the young boy cannot fully comprehend it intellectually, he feels that his surroundings have become malformed and ostentatious. He is at first as blind as his surroundings, but Joyce prepares us for his eventual perceptive awakening by mitigating his carelessness with an unconscious rejection of the spiritual stagnation of his community. Upon hitting Araby, the boy realizes that he has placed all his love and hope in a world that does not exist outside of his imagination. He feels angry and betrayed and comes to realize his self-deception, describing himself as “a creature driven and derided by vanity”, a vanity all his own (Joyce). This, inherently, represents the archetypal Joycean epiphany, a small but definitive moment after which life is never quite the same. This epiphany, in which the boy lives a dream in spite of the disagreeable and the material, is brought to its inevitable conclusion, with the single sensation of life disintegrating. At the moment of his realization, the narrator finds that he is able to better understand his particular circumstance, but, unfortunately, this

    Read More

  • Religion In James Joyce's Dubliners

    1175 Words  | 3 Pages

    A collection of short stories published in 1907, Dubliners, by James Joyce, revolves around the everyday lives of ordinary citizens in Dublin, Ireland (Freidrich 166). According to Joyce himself, his intention was to "write a chapter of the moral history of [his] country and [he] chose Dublin for the scene because the city seemed to [b]e the centre of paralysis" (Friedrich 166). True to his goal, each of the fifteen stories are tales of disappointment, darkness, captivity, frustration, and flaw. The book is divided into four sections: childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life (Levin 159). The structure of the book shows that gradually, citizens become trapped in Dublin society (Stone 140). The stories portray Joyce's feeling that Dublin is the epitome of paralysis and all of the citizens are victims (Levin 159). Although each story from Dubliners is a unique and separate depiction, they all have similarities with each other. In addition, because the first three stories -- The Sisters, An Encounter, and Araby parallel each other in many ways, they can be seen as a set in and of themselves. The purpose of this essay is to explore one particular similarity in order to prove that the childhood stories can be seen as specific section of Dubliners. By examining the characters of Father Flynn in The Sisters, Father Butler in An Encounter, and Mangan's sister in Araby, I will demonstrate that the idea of being held captive by religion is felt by the protagonist of each story. In this paper, I argue that because religion played such a significant role in the lives of the middle class, it was something that many citizens felt was suffocating and from which it was impossible to get away. Each of the three childhood stories uses religion to keep the protagonist captive. In The Sisters, Father Flynn plays an important role in making the narrator feel like a prisoner. Mr. Cotter's comment that "… a young lad [should] run about and play with young lads of his own age…" suggests that the narrator has spent a great deal of time with the priest. Even in death, the boy can not free himself from the presence of Father Flynn (Stone 169) as is illustrated in the following passage: "But the grey face still followed me. It murmured; and I understood that it desired to confess something.

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Araby And The Dead By James Joyce

    1033 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Summary of the Setting in The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield

    418 Words  | 1 Pages

    The setting in the book The Garden-Party is a very central element in the story. It is a beautiful summer day and a respectable family are having a garden party. All the roses and other flowers are colourful and fresh and the garden is extremely well-kept. The main reason for the garden party seems to be showing-off among friends in the upper-class. The mother in the family is very thorough in her preparations, everything has to be in a specific way. The flowers, the music, and the food etc. must all form the wonderful atmosphere that she has in her mind.

    Read More

  • Araby Figurative Language

    378 Words  | 1 Pages

    Obsession is persistent, and uncontrollable idea, image, thought, or emotion that one cannot help thinking although it creates anxiety and distress. In Araby by James Joyce, the main character has deep obsession with his friend’s older sister. The obsession takes over all of his thoughts as he awaits the arrival of his uncle to receive money to spend at the market to surprise his one sided lover. This advanced piece is structured with intense figurative language that creates a deep-rooted understanding of an obsession.

    Read More

  • Themes in James Joyce's Araby

    653 Words  | 2 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • Epiphany In The Garden Party

    967 Words  | 2 Pages

    Epiphany of “The garden party” appears when Laura is exposed to the world that she has never been to.. “The garden party” is mostly in the perspective of Laura. Laura is a part of an upper class family that are planning to have a nice garden party to show off their splendid garden. “They could not have had a more perfect day for a garden party if they had ordered it” (Norton ENGL 2745). This line is a sarcasm which implies that how much power the high class people had back in the early 19’s. Laura is a feature that taking a role as an intermediate between the two different classes because unlike the rest of her family she can relate to both classes but each time she is exposed, a multiple different features bring her back to her world. The hat symbolize the cultural limitation and it shows the ignorance of wealthy people about lower class. “People like them don’t expect sacrifices from us” (Norton ENGL 2752). When Laura is deeply upset after hearing the accident, her mom gives her the hat. She looks herself in the mirror and forgets how she felt when she heard the news for the first time. Laura never rejects her hat, showing that she does not reject her place in her class. The Hat is used to criticizes the inaccessibility of wealthy class to lower class that even a hat could hide a death of

    Read More

More about Comparison of Araby and The Garden Party

Open Document