The Narrative Voice in Araby, Livvie and The Yellow Wallpaper
I hadn't really considered the importance of the narrative voice on the way the story is told until now. In "Araby", "Livvie" and "The Yellow Wallpaper" the distinctive narrative voices and their influences shed light on hidden meanings and the narrator's credibility.
In "Araby" the story is told from the point of view of a man remembering a childhood experience. The story is told in the first person. The reader has access to the thoughts of the narrator as he relives his experience of what we assume is his first crush. We do not know how the girl feels about him. The narrator's youth and inexperience influence his perspective. His love for her is deep and innocent. As an adult, the narrator recollects his emotions for the girl with fondness, but the reader also detects a hint of regret as well. The narrator tells us that their first communication takes place when he goes to the back drawing room where the priest had died. There, in that sacred place, he spoke with the girl and made a promise that he would get her a gift if he was able to go to Araby. Soon after, "as a creature driven by vanity", he fails to retrieve a gift for her and is humiliated. I wonder if the narrator is implying that his true devotion to her was somehow blessed in the room where the priest died and when he allowed his sinful vanity to penetrate that love, he lost her.
In "Livvie" the story is relayed by an omniscient third person narration. The narrator in this case provides insight into each of the characters, yielding to no one inparticular. The narrator uses subtle patterns in association wit...
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...ten seen as representing an imaginative or "poetic" view of things that conflicts with (or sometimes compliments) the American male's "common sense" approach to reality". When society "values the useful and the practical and rejects anything else as nonsense", (feminine) imagination and creativity are threatened. Much like our narrator, women of that time were directed to suppress their creativity as it threatened the dominating male's sense of logic and control. "Perhaps the story was unpopular (at first) because it was, at least on some level, understood all too clearly, because it struck too deeply and effectively at traditional ways of seeing the world and woman's place in it".
Works Dited
Shumaker, Conrad. "'Too Terribly Good to Be Printed': Charlotte Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper'." Journal of American Literature 57.4 (1985): 588-599.
The setting of both stories reinforces the notion of women's dependence on men. The late 1800's were a turbulent time for women's roles. The turn of the century brought about revolution, fueled by the energy and freedom of a new horizon…but it was still just around the bend. In this era, during which both short stories were published, members of the weaker sex were blatantly disregarded as individuals, who had minds that could think, and reason, and form valid opinions.
Dibs was a very young boy who had a lot of potential, even though everyone thought he was mentally retarded. Within each relationship that children develop, different personalities are shown. Normally, a child is most comfortable when they are with their parents, and most eager in the classroom. This is not seen at all with Dibs. He is most comfortable when he is with Dr. Axline, even though she is a complete stranger. Although Dr. Axline’s first time in the playroom wasn’t as successful as later visits, Dibs said more to her in that first session than he would to his teachers. He made himself comfortable by getting familiar with each of the toys in the room naming and touching each as he went along.
When the books starts, Dibs is in the school since two years. At the beginning he refused to talk. Sometimes he could stay dumb and still during an entire morning. Other times, he could have violent bout of anger when it was time to go back home, which provoked towards teachers and director of the school a big anxiety. Was he mentally retarded? Was he suffering of a mental illness since his birth? Did his brain have received a shock? No one knew, even his parents who always refused to talk about their son’s attitude. But as the author, Virginia Axline, said “there was something about Dibs behavior that defied the teachers to categorize him, glibly and routinely, and send him on his way. His behavior was so uneven. At one time, he seemed to be extremely retarded mentally. Another time he would quickly and quietly do something that indicated he might even have superior intelligence” (Axline, Virginia Dibs in search of Self, 15). The staff meeting of class finally decide to help Dibs and to do something for him. It is at this point that the Doctor Virginia Axline, “specialized in working with children and parents” is called.
Written stories differ in numerous ways, but most of them have one thing in common; they all have a narrator that, on either rare occasions or more regularly, help to tell the story. Sometimes, the narrator is a vital part of the story since without him or her, it would not be possible to tell the story in the same way, and sometimes, the narrator has a very small role in the story. However, he or she is always there, and to compare how different authors use, and do not use, this outside perspective writing tool, a comparison between Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno, Henry James’ Daisy Miller, and David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly will be done.
Despite their differences in time period, location, and gender, the narrators of “Araby” and “Wild Berry Blue” are alike in their infatuations and in their journeys. Within each story, the young narrators come to the conclusion their actions reflect their immaturity and folly with regard to their first loves. The appearance of this conclusion in both “Wild Berry Blue” and “Araby” indicates Galchen’s deep understanding of “Araby”. Rivka Galchen must have read James Joyce’s classic short story “Araby” prior to writing her narrative “Wild Berry Blue” with a similar plot but a contemporary
Joyce, James. “Araby.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter Eighth Edition. Eds. Jerome Beaty, Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W.Norton.
I noticed a lot of auditory imagery in "Araby" that helped to enhance the meaning of the story. The first is the description of the sound in the streets when the young man is walking by thinking of the girl he loves. He hears the "curses of laborers," the "shrill litanies of shop boys," and "nasal chantings of street singers." All of these images, besides just making the street seem busy, also make it seem like an unpleasant and intruding scene, almost like you would want to cover your ears and hurry through as fast as possible. This compliments perfectly the boy's imagination that he is "carrying his chalice safely through a throng of foes." In the scene where the boy is in the priest's house late at night, the auditory imagery helps contribute to the sense of drama. "There was no sound in the house," but outside boy heard the rain "impinge upon the earth" with "fine incessant needles of water." The choice of words here makes the rain seem almost as if it is hostile. You can hear the force and fury of the storm, and this makes the emotions the boy is feeling seem even more intense.
Stone, Harry. "Araby" and the Writings of James Joyce. N.p.: n.p., n.d. EBSCO. Web. .
In James Joyce’s Araby, a young boy finds himself in love with an older girl. The girl, Mangan’s sister, refuses to love him back and instead ignores him. This crushes the boy and makes his hunger for her even more stronger. He sometimes finds himself hopelessly alone in the darkness thinking about her, awaiting for the day she would recognize his devotion to her. “ At night in my bedroom…her image came between me and the page I strove to read (805).” “At last she spoke to me (805).” She asked him if he was going to attend a popular carnival called Araby. Unfortunately, she was unable to go, and it was up to him to bring her something back. This became his journey and adventure that he could not wait for. “I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days (805).” When he finally arrived at Araby he found himself, once again alone in the darkness, due to the fact that it was closing time. Nearly all the stalls were closed down already, except one. When he approached to the open stall to buy a special present for his loved one, he was by the saleswomen’s mean and annoyed tone of voice, when she asked him if he would like to buy anything. “She seem to have spoken to me out of a sense of duty (807).” His only response was a disappointed “No thank you (807).” He was obviously heartbroken and shocked that he was unable to accomplish his task, and make the love of his life love him the same way he loves her. This young boy is introduced to disappointment of disillusionment through the themes of isolation, dark and light images, and hopelessness an decay.
It has been such a joy reading “The Norton Introduction to Literature” by Kelly J. Mays. Of all the stories that I was assigned to read, one story in particular stood out to me because of how the author used words to create a vivid image in my mind. The story I’m talking about is “Araby” by James Joyce. James Joyce does a great job creating vivid images in the readers mind and creates a theme that most of us can relate. In this paper I will be discussing five scholarly peer reviewed journals that also discusses the use of image and theme that James Joyce created in his short story “Araby”. Before I start diving into discussing these five scholarly peer review journals, I would like to just write a little bit about “Araby” by James Joyce. James Joyce is an Irish writer, mostly known for modernist writing and his short story “Araby” is one of fifteen short stories from his first book that was published called “Dubliners”. Lastly, “Araby” is the third story in Dubliners. Now I will be transitioning to discussing the scholarly peer review journals.
Written in 1914, James Joyce’s “Araby” is the tragic tale of a young boy’s first hopeless infatuation with a neighborhood girl. The young boy lives in a dark and unforgiving world.
In “Araby”, James Joyce details the transition of a young Irish boy into his adolescence. Looking for love and excitement, the narrator becomes obsessed with pleasing his best friend’s sister, eventually ending up at a special festival to buy her a present. Disappointed by the bad- natured shopkeepers and its closing down, he reaches a frustrating epiphany about the fine line between reality and his wistful dreams. Through the use of fanciful imagery and detached characterization, Joyce demonstrates how romance belongs to the realm of the young, not the old, and that it is doomed to fail in a word flawed by materialism and a lack of beauty.
In the story “Araby”, by James Joyce the narrator talks about life on North Richmond Street. The narrator lives with his aunt and uncle in an apartment that a former priest, who had died, had lived in. The priest left behind many books and the boy would often go and read them. The boy (narrator) became friends with a boy named Mangan, and develops a crush on his sister. He watches her almost every day. “Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlor watching her door.” (Page 1137) He had never spoken to this girl until one day she approached him. She asked him if he is going to the Araby. She explains to the boy how she cannot go and he assures her that he will go and bring her back something. However through a series of events the boy is late to the bazaar and realizes his pocket change falls short. The boy in James Joyce’s “Araby” learns that life throws us curves, day dreams are much more pleasant than harsh reality, and he forever will remain a prisoner of his modest means and his city.
“Charles Dickens: Great Expectations.” (2 Feb, 2006): 2. Online. World Wide Web. 2 Feb, 2006. Available http://www.uned.es/dpto-filologias-extranjeras/cursos/LenguaIglesaIII/TextosYComentarios/dickens.htm.