Obsession in Araby
In James Joyce’s short story "Araby," the main character is a young boy who confuses obsession with love. This boy thinks he is in love with a young girl, but all of his thoughts, ideas, and actions show that he is merely obsessed. Throughout this short story, there are many examples that show the boy’s obsession for the girl. There is also evidence that shows the boy does not really understand love or all of the feelings that go along with it.
When the boy first describes the girl, you can see his obsession for her. He seems to notice every detail such as "her dress swung as she moved her body and the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side" (Joyce 548). You do not usually remember every minute detail of someone unless you are very intrigued by them. Also, note the way he describes her hair as "soft rope." This shows the intricate way the boy views her.
Another way you can see the young boy’s obsession for the girl is through his actions. Every morning, he waits for the girl to appear, and then he follows her. The way in which the boy waits for the girl definitely shows that he is obsessed with her. The young boy lies "on the floor in the front parlour watching her. The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash so that [he] could not be seen" (Joyce 548). This sounds like spying, and spying on someone usually indicates that you have a fixation with that person. In this case, the young boy does demonstrate this fixation.
For instance, while the young boy is following her, this is the way he describes his adventure: "I kept her brown figure always in my eye, and when we came near the point at which our ways diverged, I quickened my pace and passed her. This happened morning ...
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...ights go out, and he is in the dark. As he stands there in the darkness, he sees himself "as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and [his] eyes burn with anguish and anger" (Joyce 551). I think this is when the young boy realizes that his whole trip to Araby was foolish because a gift from the bazaar is not going to make the young girl love him. The young boy finally realizes that everything he has done has been driven by some foolish notion that he thinks is love, but now he knows it is just a pathetic obsession for the young girl. The young boy’s eyes are burning because he feels so foolish about everything he has done supposedly for love, when he finally realizes all of his thoughts, actions, and ideas were just an obsession.
Works Cited
Joyce, James. "Araby." The Harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed Sylvan Barnet. New York: HarperCollins, 1986.
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John Updike's A & P and James Joyce's Araby share many of the same literary traits. The primary focus of the two stories revolves around a young man who is compelled to decipher the difference between cruel reality and the fantasies of romance that play in his head. That the man does, indeed, discover the difference is what sets him off into emotional collapse. One of the main similarities between the two stories is the fact that the main character, who is also the protagonist, has built up incredible, yet unrealistic, expectations of women, having focused upon one in particular towards which he places all his unrequited affection. The expectation these men hold when finally "face to face with their object of worship" (Wells, 1993, p. 127) is what sends the final and crushing blow of reality: The rejection they suffer is far too great for them to bear.
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Prohibition not only failed in its promise to curb the social problem created by alcohol. It actually promoted s...
...the future to see that his life is not ruined by acts of immaturity. And, in “Araby”, we encounter another young man facing a crisis of the spirit who attempts to find a very limiting connection between his religious and his physical and emotional passions. In all of these stories, we encounter boys in the cusp of burgeoning manhood. What we are left with, in each, is the understanding that even if they can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, we can. These stories bind all of us together in their universal messages…youth is something we get over, eventually, and in our own ways, but we cannot help get over it.
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.
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.
Prohibition in the United States lasted about 14 years from 1920 to 1933. “Prohibition was the period in United States history in which the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors was outlawed.” . Intoxicating liquors were beginning to ruin the lives of some Americans and it became banned. “Prohibition, members of the Temperance movement urged, would stop husbands from spending all the family income on alcohol and prevent accidents in the workplace caused by workers who drank during lunch” . Alcohol was beginning to tear families apart and some wanted to finally outlaw all of the alcohol which would make life easier. In the beginning organizations pushed moderation, but after some decades the organizations’ focus’ turned into the idea of complete prohibition . Although the idea of total prohibition was far-fetched it eventually began. The 18th amendment brought about complete prohibition to all of the United States, with this amendment prohibition in the United States was finally established.