Vanity and Anguish In James Joyce’s Araby, the main character lives in poverty with his aunt and uncle. Beside them lives his best friend Mangan and his sister, who he has a deep and passionate admiration for. The young boy lives a gloomy and lonely life. He does not go out much and the reader observes that the boy has few friends and has trouble communicating with people, especially with his aunt and uncle. He has very little to be cheerful about and at the end of the story it is clear to the boy that he may never escape the life that he so dearly wishes to leave behind forever and to start fresh. At the end if the story, we the reader realize that the main character of this story began in a very impoverished lifestyle, tried to make his …show more content…
Then I turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar. I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. The upper part of the hall was now completely dark.” (Wascana, 283) In this short paragraph we can see the boy hopelessly trying to fill a void within himself but ultimately realizing he cannot and being forced away from the stall as the bazaar is closed and all the hope within himself goes out as the lights around him also fade from existence. This story roughly shows an idea of escapism as it narrates the boy clearly not enjoying his existence in this life he is living and wishes that a circumstance or event could take him far away from it to another place where his life is not so difficult and hard for him. At the end of the short story, the boy’s hope to escape this dull life of his seems to just vanish as the lights at the bazaar turn off as well and he is left to look up at the dark nighttime sky and the belief that he will never escape this life sets on him. The conclusion of the short story ends by the narrator telling the reader that “ Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.” (Wascana, 283) The young boy’s hope seems to finally die with these final thoughts flowing …show more content…
There are a few symbols that would help explain this if the reader paid careful attention to them. The two pennies in the boys pocket symbolize that he lived in poverty. The high cold gloomy rooms of his aunt and uncle’s house is another symbol. It symbolizes that he does not feel welcome or at home anywhere. The boy does not have a space in his house in which makes him feel safe and at home. The best symbol to help describe how the boy feels is when the narrator states “ From the front window I could see my companions playing below in the street. Their cries reached me weekend and indistinct…” (Waskana 282) The boy never went outside to play with the other kids on the block. He just sat around, feeling alone and feeling sorry for himself. These symbols lead the reader to the conclusion and thus explains to the reader why the boy feels like there is no
The time period this work takes place in is a very gloomy and frightening time. He wakes up in a dark place by himself and in fear, which makes things worse. A common theme we can relate this dark place to is when we fall off of the path of God. Since God represents all things good, the dark is the exact opposite. Since everything is not so clear in the wood he his describing, the path back to God is even more difficult to attain.
Since symbolism first began to be used in the English language, Light has always represented a theme of hope and optimism. The phrase “Light at the end of the tunnel” best encompasses this, implying an opportunity or relief after difficulty or chaos. In the same way, Darkness has represented confusion or despair. James Joyce expands on the traditional connotations of Light and Darkness in his short story “Araby”. The narrative follows a young boy on his futile quest to find love with a girl much older than himself whom he hardly knows. Joyce uses Light to represent not only hope, but unrealistic idealism and illusion. In the same way, Darkness, in addition to despair, represents the reality and truth in the narrator's predicament. Joyce uses Light and Darkness as a symbol for the clash between fantasy and reality that takes place within the narrator.
In “Another Holiday for the Prince” by Elizabeth Jolley the author draws upon many themes, one in particular that Jolley illustrates is how poverty influences changes in the individual lives within one family. To begin with the head of the family; a father is never mentioned in the story, not even once. But by not having a father figure in the story the reader can understand a lot. In society the man is the one who earns the money and provides all the essentials for his family, however this story is presented in a society were the mother has to be the man of the family. Ones self-esteem can be diminished as a result of poverty, alienation; destructive effects of a week personality or society on the individual. The author effectively conveys this theme through the use of characterization, symbolism and contrast.
The notion of poverty has a very expanded meaning. Although all three stories use poverty as their theme, each interprets it differently. Consequently, it does not necessarily mean the state of extreme misery that has been described in ?Everyday Use?. As Carver points out, poverty may refer to poverty of one?s mind, which is caused primarily by the lack of education and stereotyped personality. Finally, poverty may reflect the hopelessness of one?s mind. Realizing that no bright future awaits them, Harlem kids find no sense in their lives. Unfortunately, the satisfaction of realizing their full potential does not derive from achieving standards that are unachievable by others. Instead, it arises uniquely from denigrating others, as the only way to be higher than someone is to put this person lower than you.
“These boys, now, were living as we'd been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities. They were filled with rage. All they really knew were two darkness’s, the darkness of their lives, which were now closi...
Darkness is used throughout the story as the prevailing theme. James Joyce's story begins at dusk and continues through the evening during the winter. in the Araby of Ireland. He chooses this gloomy setting to be the home of a young boy. who is infatuated with his neighbors sister.
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.
“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.” James Joyce, an early twentieth century writer, said these words, and portrayed it often through his works. Often, his greater works discussed the way the mind works through realistic examples; one such example is the novel Ulysses, in which Joyce writes over 900 pages on one day of one man’s life. One specific short story, “Araby”, tells the story of a young boy who comes to an epiphany at the end of his story. Three crucial realizations the narrator comes too at the very end of this story are his curse of poverty, life’s lack of true meaning, and the shear anger and anguish that comes with the sadness of life.
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).
The story begins as the boy describes his neighborhood. Immediately feelings of isolation and hopelessness begin to set in. The street that the boy lives on is a dead end, right from the beginning he is trapped. In addition, he feels ignored by the houses on his street. Their brown imperturbable faces make him feel excluded from the decent lives within them. The street becomes a representation of the boy’s self, uninhabited and detached, with the houses personified, and arguably more alive than the residents (Gray). Every detail of his neighborhood seems designed to inflict him with the feeling of isolation. The boy's house, like the street he lives on, is filled with decay. It is suffocating and “musty from being long enclosed.” It is difficult for him to establish any sort of connection to it. Even the history of the house feels unkind. The house's previous tenant, a priest, had died while living there. He “left all his money to institutions and the furniture of the house to his sister (Norton Anthology 2236).” It was as if he was trying to insure the boy's boredom and solitude. The only thing of interest that the boy can find is a bicycle pump, which is rusty and rendered unfit to play with. Even the “wild” garden is gloomy and desolate, containing but a lone apple tree and a few straggling bushes. It is hardly the sort of yard that a young boy would want. Like most boys, he has no voice in choosing where he lives, yet his surroundings have a powerful effect on him.
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
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 family’s poverty (which is partially due to the father’s absence) makes their future seem hopeless. The family lives in a poor, rural area, which was typical of black persons of their time. The family is crowded into a small, shabby home, so they must share rooms and beds. The family’s clothes are quite shabby too, for when James sees a mannequin in a store with new brown shoes, he looks at his own old shoes and thinks, “You wait till Summer…” The family does not even have enough money for some of life’s other necessities, such as food and medical care. For example, they eat bread and syrup every day for breakfast; and as James’ younger brother, Ty, said, “I’m getting tired of this old syrup. I want me some bacon sometime.” Beans are another bland food that J...
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.
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.