In our ever changing and evolving lives, experiences teach us lessons throughout. When new experiences are present there is usually something gained or lost from that certain situation. Although sometimes these lessons aren’t easily recognized; once they come up, they become instilled in our brain. These lessons can plan an important role in the way we act and react to certain things in life. Some experiences can be an eye opener and take us away from something we had been doing which we now know is a bad thing and should get back on the right track. Either that or the experience could be less of a physical thing and more of a mental thing in which we correct ourselves through our thoughts or opinions about certain things. Being in someone else’s shoes for example or in their brain and learning more about that specific person. Some stories can reveal an important moment or experience in a specific characters life. In Araby by James Joyce there is some reference to the blind, “In James Joyce “Araby”, the main protagonist is blinded by his subjective egotism and his inability to separate himself from the nets of his own culture status, overshadowed by English imperialism…it is not until the protagonist undergoes an epiphany—a dramatic but fleeting moment of revelation about self or the world—that he is then able to see the objective from that point of view” (Ryan Sehrer). The main character presented in Araby by James Joyce is blinded by many things in his life: in the end he learns lessons and receives messages; not to over consume, love can be the light, and with age comes experience.
As a consequent of the main character completely consuming him to one young lady, he both loses and gains something through a lesson. His gain is ...
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...m Innocence to Insight: 'Araby' as an Iniation Story." Chapter 10. The St. Martin's Guide to Writing. By Rise Axlerod and Charles Cooper. Vol. 8. N.p.: n.p., 2008. 536-38. Print.
Sehrer, Ryan. "James Joyce's 'Araby': In the Dark." 2011. PDF file.
Stone, Harry. "'Araby' and the Writing of James Joyce." Antioch Review 1 Apr. 2013: n. pag. eLibrary. Web. 12 May 2014. .
Thurston, Brandon. "Literary Analysis 'Araby' by James Joyce." Humanities. N.p., 9 May 2008. Web. 12 May 2014. .
Doloff, Steven. "Rousseau and the confessions of 'Araby'.," James Joyce Quarterly, vol.33, (1996) : Winter, pp. 255(4). Joyce, James. Dubliners. (New York : Penguin, 1967).
Anderson takes advantage of the “Notes” section at the end of each chapter to add credibility to any information that she did not receive directly: “Half a century ago, H. A. H. Gibb ventured a brief but cogent definition of the Arab. ‘All those are Arabs,’ he wrote, ‘for whom the central fact of history is the mission of Muhammad and the memory of the Arab Empire… (88)”. At the end of the chapter, Anderson cites this in the Notes section as “Bernard, Lewis, The Arabs in History, 9 (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1950). (105)”. This information not only adds credibly to the author, but it doesn’t overwhelm the reader with a lot of material at once, allowing them to enjoy the content.
Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard UP, 1991. Print.
Perhaps the main reason I liked this book was the unfaltering courage of the author in the face of such torture as hurts one even to read, let alone have to experience first-hand. Where men give in, this woman perseveres, and, eventually, emerges a stronger person, if that is even possible. The book’s main appeal is emotional, although sound logical arguments are also used. This book is also interesting as it shows us another face of Nasir – the so-called “champion of Arab nationalism” – who is also the enemy of pan-Islamism. The book is also proof of history repeating itself in modern-day Egypt.
Pinault, David. "The Thousand and One Nights in Arabic Literature and Society." Journal of the American Oriental Society 119 (1999):536-537.
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...
Joyce, James. “Araby”. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Eds. R.V. Cassill and Richard Bausch. Shorter Sixth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000. 427 - 431.
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.
...om Joyce’s childhood. The young boy may have felt anguish, but the adult that looks back at himself sees someone who desires romance and happiness. Joyce explains “Araby” as the life of a young boy who has dreams and high expectations of the world, but instead the young boy gets a bitter taste of reality.
Snart, Jason. "In Aid Of Teaching James Joyce's "Araby." Eureka Studies In Teaching Short Fiction 9.2 (2009): 89-101. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.
Joyce, James. "Araby." 1914. Literature and Ourselves. Henderson, Gloria, ed. Boston, Longman Press. 2009. 984-988.
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.
Araby is about escaping into the world of fantasy. The narrator is infatuated with his friend's sister; he hides in the shadows, peering secluded from a distance trying to spy her "brown figure"(Joyce 38). She is the light in his fantasy, someone who will lift him out of darkness. I see many parallels to my life as a boy growing up in the inner city of Jersey City. We looked for escape also, a trip uptown to Lincoln Park, or take a train ride to New York City where we would gaze at the beauties on 7th Ave.
Although he had endured trials and tribulations to attend the bazaar, he soon finds that, exotic name withstanding, he is still in Dublin, is still impoverished, and his dreams of Araby were merely that, dreams. Our narrator remains a prisoner of his environment, his economic situation, and painful reality. North Richmond Street, the dead-end street described in the first sentence of “Araby” is more than a street. It is a symbol for the way that our protagonist views his life.
Kenner, Hugh. "Joyce's Portrait -- A Reconsideration". The University of Windsor Review. vol.1, no. 1. Spring, 1965. 1-15. Rpt. in Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. ed. Dennis Poupard. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1985. 16:229-234.