James Joyce’s text Araby is quite an intriguing text. Throughout Joyce’s life, he has been nominated for top five stories in literature in the twentieth century. Not only is this a tremendous goal and an accomplishment, but as authors struggle to even get in the top one-hundred, James Joyce, have had two of his texts in the top five. Any writer who could write just as good as Joyce would definitely be an outstanding literature writer. However, in this text Araby, by James Joyce, is an understanding of a little boy wanting to buy his girl something special from the thrift store (Araby). As you continue to read on through the short-story there is an understanding that the narrator lost something and gained something. In the text Araby, the narrator gains the special feeling called love and he loses what he tries to get for his girl.
Araby, could mean lots of things. For instance, in this text we could say it meant a mall or store. As the narrator met an outstanding girl, he does what most boys would do for their first crush. Stated in the text, “She asked me was I going to Araby. I for...
Friendship means different things for everyone. It can mean happiness and trust. Friends are important to connect to, talk to, and to help in tough situations. Friends help teach life lessons. Most importantly, friends are there to love and to feel loved. The Simple Gift by Steven Herrick revolves around the friendship between the main characters, Old Bill, Billy, and Caitlin. Their friendship resulted in them learning valuable life lessons and experiencing the power of love.
As soon as “Araby” begins, the religious allusions do also. Joyce immediately puts readers in a religious frame of mind as the narrator speaks of the Christian Brother’s School and the priest who formerly lived in his house. Shortly after a religious mindset is formed, the narrator speaks of “the wild garden behind the house [containing]
A person’s life is often a journey of study and learning from errors and mistakes made in the past. In both James Joyce’s Araby and John Updike’s A&P, the main characters, subjected to the events of their respective stories, are forced to reflect upon their actions which failed to accomplish their original goal in impressing another character. Evidently, there is a similar thematic element that emerges from incidents in both short stories, which show maturity as an arduous process of learning from failures and a loss of innocence. By analyzing the consequences of the interaction of each main character; the Narrator in Araby and Sammy in A&P; and their persons of infatuation, Mangan’s sister
The protagonist of Araby is a young boy who is infatuated with his friend Mangan 's sister. The setting, and the introduction of the this woman is nearly identical to that in A&P. Joyce 's narrator spends his time “lay[ing] on the floor in the front parlour watching [Magnan 's sister 's] door” (Joyce 182). Immediately from the outset of the story, Joyce has rendered the narrator as someone who frivolously awaits his female interest with no other motivation. The main character then finally encounters Magnan 's sister personally, where she tells him about a bazaar near town called Araby. Joyce 's protagonist is shocked when Magnan 's sister “addresse[s] the first words to [him]” (Joyce 183) as he has spent a plethora of time yearning for an interaction with her. Joyce has implemented the idea into Araby that males are inherently reliant on females. Interestingly, Joyce has incorporated another male character in his story that is presented as inferior to his female counterpart. The purpose of the narrator 's uncle in the story is to slow the main character from going to Araby. The Uncle comes home much later than expected, and is chastised my his wife: “Can 't you give him the money and let him go? You 'v kept him late enough as it
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.
Hunter, Cheryl. "The Coming Of Age Archetype In James Joyce's "Araby.." Eureka Studies In Teaching Short Fiction 7.2 (2007): 102-104. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
The story “Araby” opens with a description of North Richmond Street. This gives reader the first view of the young boy's world. The Richmond Street “was a quiet street except.....the boys free” (Joyce 345). The young boy in “Araby” lives with his aunt a...
In her story, "Araby," James Joyce concentrates on character rather than on plot to reveal the ironies inherent in self-deception. On one level "Araby" is a story of initiation, of a boy’s quest for the ideal. The quest ends in failure but results in an inner awareness and a first step into manhood. On another level the story consists of a grown man's remembered experience, for the story is told in retrospect by a man who looks back to a particular moment of intense meaning and insight. As such, the boy's experience is not restricted to youth's encounter with first love. Rather, it is a portrayal of a continuing problem all through life: the incompatibility of the ideal, of the dream as one wishes it to be, with the bleakness of reality. This double focus-the boy who first experiences, and the man who has not forgotten-provides for the dramatic rendering of a story of first love told by a narrator who, with his wider, adult vision, can employ the sophisticated use of irony and symbolic imagery necessary to reveal the story's meaning.
“Araby” tells the story of a young boy who romanticizes over his friend’s older sister. He spends a lot of time admiring the girl from a distance. When the girl finally talks to him, she reveals she cannot go to the bazaar taking place that weekend, he sees it as a chance to impress her. He tells her that he is going and will buy her something. The boy becomes overwhelmed by the opportunity to perform this chivalrous act for her, surely allowing him to win the affections of the girl. The night of the bazaar, he is forced to wait for his drunken uncle to return home to give him money to go. Unfortunately, this causes the boy to arrive at the bazaar as it is closing. Of the stalls that remained open, he visited one where the owner, and English woman, “seemed to have spoken to me out of a sense of duty” (Joyce 89) and he knows he will not be able to buy anything for her. He decides to just go home, realizing he is “a creature driven and derided with vanity” (Joyce 90). He is angry with himself and embarrassed as he...
Joyce, James. "Araby." 1914. Literature and Ourselves. Henderson, Gloria, ed. Boston, Longman Press. 2009. 984-988.
Joyce, James . “Araby.” Literature: An Introduction to Writing. Roberts, Edgar V. and Jacobs,. Henry E. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2001.
Although “Araby” is a fairly short story, author James Joyce does a remarkable job of discussing some very deep issues within it. On the surface it appears to be a story of a boy's trip to the market to get a gift for the girl he has a crush on. Yet deeper down it is about a lonely boy who makes a pilgrimage to an eastern-styled bazaar in hopes that it will somehow alleviate his miserable life. James Joyce’s uses the boy in “Araby” to expose a story of isolation and lack of control. These themes of alienation and control are ultimately linked because it will be seen that the source of the boy's emotional distance is his lack of control over his life.
Throughout “Araby”, the main character experiences a dynamic character shift as he recognizes that his idealized vision of his love, as well as the bazaar Araby, is not as grandiose as he once thought. The main character is infatuated with the sister of his friend Mangan; as “every morning [he] lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door…when she came on the doorstep [his] heart leaped” (Joyce 108). Although the main character had never spoken to her before, “her name was like a summons to all [his] foolish blood” (Joyce 108). In a sense, the image of Mangan’s sister was the light to his fantasy. She seemed to serve as a person who would lift him up out of the darkness of the life that he lived. This infatuation knew no bounds as “her image accompanied [him] even in places the most hostile to romance…her name sprang to [his] lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which [he] did not understand” (Joyce 109). The first encounter the narrator ex...
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.