James Joyce's Araby: Divorcing The Catholic Church

Divorcing the Catholic Church Using symbolism, James Joyce displays his disdain for the antiquated Catholic church.
Throughout his short story Araby, a central object reflects the Irishman’s ideologies—the old priest’s home. Whenever the author describes the drawing room—the room most strongly associated with Catholicism—he illustrates the air as being “musty from having been long enclosed” (Joyce). Joyce’s comparison directly correlates with the church, that because the religion refused to progress and adapt to the new times, that the religion itself became stale and archaic. In the Irishman’s mind “[he] s[ees]...parishes as the primary catalysts in the deterioration of Irish society” because of their disregard of the modern times (“James

Joyce’s disgust at the lack of individuality within the church shines through Araby in the form of the priest. Throughout the piece, the cleric remains nameless, only remembered for “[leaving] all his money to institutions and the furniture of the house to his sister” (Joyce). Not only does the priest not have any individual characteristics or a name, but his entire life revolves around the house. The priest was only known for his materialism, revered for giving money to “institutions”—easily interpreted as other parishes—and “his sister”—which he did to keep the money within the family, or congregation. It was because of this materialistic corruption, and Catholicism's devotion to outdated tradition, that Joyce began to separate himself from the church. Having grown up “detest[ing] falsity and believ[ing] in individual freedom”, Joyce felt “that he should save his real spiritual life” rather than be “crushed by a false one”—his Catholic one (“My Brother’s Keeper”). Joyce depicts what he would have become through the priest's home. With “broken panes”, “straggling bushes”, and “rusty bicycle pumps”, he shows the deterioration of morales within