Araby by James Joyce

Every character in a story is on a journey. This journey is one that does not always end with the character far away from where they were, but this journey can be within themselves. In whatever small or large way a character has experienced this journey, they have been changed. This inner change can come in the form of self-discovery. The character learning something about themselves they did not know before. This self-discovery a character finds can be found in the short stories "Araby" by James Joyce, "Bartleby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville, and "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka. The character experience a journey within the plot of their stories and by the end discover more about themselves.

The first example is the unnamed boy, the narrator, from "Araby" by James Joyce. The story revolves around the narrator's quest to Araby, a magical and mysterious market. The boy likens his going to the market as a quest, he is in search of adventure from his boring life, as if he is the hero to a story. After a few distractions the boy is finally able to make it to Araby, but he finds that the market is nothing like he thought it would be. What the boy discovers by the end of his journey to Araby is that he is not the hero and the is no adventure.

In the beginning of the story the narrator gives the description of his street with "an uninhabited house of two storeys, stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbors..." the boy goes on to describe the other houses too as "with brown imperturbable faces" (Joyce 15). The boy describes his home as boring, where nothing interesting happens. The boy feels "detached" from his life and desires adventure.

He get a glimmer of this when he talks with Mangan's sister. The boy already i...

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...e self-discovery a character experiences serves as the recognition for overcoming conflict, or failure to overcome. In each story the characters learn something about themselves that are not positive things. Self-discovery is about the character learning something about themselves they previously did not know. For each character their self-discovery is connected to what they lack or failures. Which the acknowledgement of the self does not always bring a positive outcome. But the character become a little bit wiser and in the end have gained knowledge.

Works Cited

Joyce, James. Dubliners. New York: Dover Publications, 1991. Print.

Kaika, Franz. The Metamorphosis and Other Stories. 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501: Dover Publications, 1996. Print.

Melville, Herman, and Herman Melville. Bartleby ; And, Benito Cereno. New York: Dover Publications, 1990. Print.