English Paper
At some point people all grow up, some faster than others. Others still maintain certain characteristic from there childhood whether it be a scare from a football game on the street or the internal gratification one gets when they do something naughty behind a bush in the ally. Yet, the way a person looks back on these events change the way they actually occurred. Was that one naughty act in the ally the beginnings of ones sexual awakening or was it just kids being kids. James Joyce examines this event in his life. He almost tries to rationalize the thought of ‘puppy love’ in his mind. Yet, Joyce find himself at a dead end, like the story will foreshadow. In the short story “Araby” by James Joyce the protagonists travels through the world of disillusionment in order to find reality.
“Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses where we ran the gantlet of rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odors arose from the ash pits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness (94).” The boy played in the dirt, here the streets were dirty and the sky was dark, and the air was fetid. They played games like all children do of imagining themselves in rainforest in search for the Holy Grail. Latching and searching for dreams. Joyce sets the perfect setting for disenchantment by overcastting a child’s world with these dark images. A quick scan of the important adjectives in the first paragraph -- "blind," "quiet," "uninhabited," "detached," "square," "decent," "brown," "imperturbable" -- quickly presents a world that is practical, simple, and unmitigated stultifying (93). With that being said this open up enough surface area for the boy to come into manhood.
Mangan’s sister gives action to the story. Even if she is a minor character in the piece she still pulls the actions. In the world of the boy she is the sun. That haloed brow of hers gives light to the dark places of his reality. He sees for the first time beauty and his minds only response to that is love; moreover, this love turns quickly into infatuation. Also at the sight of Meangan’s sister reality and illusion came together. To him her eyes, her expressions, and her remarks, which were few, became instant answer to her requited love to him enough for him to go to Araby that coming night and buy her a gift: “the syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me (95).” His calling or challenge of loves his quest for the grail.
Because the narrator treats Mangan’ sister as only an object of desire -- as opposed to a person capable of desires -- reality is destined to disappoint him this is the true definition of infatuation. Through her, we come to understand that the narrator at the end of the story is not only distraught because his idea of love has been dashed, but ashamed that he could have been so foolish and childish to believe in them in the first place. As he gets off the train and into the gate of the bazaar, he saw reality. He looked upon the men counting their money and the cheap gifts hanging from the rafters each as worthless as the next. That lulling voice of the silence no longer beckons him to continue his journey. But he turns around and walks outside those gates a man.
Clearly, we may find solace in the offset of these themes against one another; furthermore, we must weigh our equivocations against the exorable attack of dark, drab, impecunious imagery that Joyce assaults us with in “Araby” to create a vision of childhood that is vitiated of both life and hope.
“Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses where we ran the gantlet of rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odors arose from the ash pits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness (94).” The boy played in the dirt, here the streets were dirty and the sky was dark, and the air was fetid. They played games like all children do of imagining themselves in rainforest in search for the Holy Grail. Latching and searching for dreams. Joyce sets the perfect setting for disenchantment by overcastting a child’s world with these dark images. A quick scan of the important adjectives in the first paragraph -- "blind," "quiet," "uninhabited," "detached," "square," "decent," "brown," "imperturbable" -- quickly presents a world that is practical, simple, and unmitigated stultifying (93). With that being said this open up enough surface area for the boy to come into manhood.
Mangan’s sister gives action to the story. Even if she is a minor character in the piece she still pulls the actions. In the world of the boy she is the sun. That haloed brow of hers gives light to the dark places of his reality. He sees for the first time beauty and his minds only response to that is love; moreover, this love turns quickly into infatuation. Also at the sight of Meangan’s sister reality and illusion came together. To him her eyes, her expressions, and her remarks, which were few, became instant answer to her requited love to him enough for him to go to Araby that coming night and buy her a gift: “the syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me (95).” His calling or challenge of loves his quest for the grail.
Because the narrator treats Mangan’ sister as only an object of desire -- as opposed to a person capable of desires -- reality is destined to disappoint him this is the true definition of infatuation. Through her, we come to understand that the narrator at the end of the story is not only distraught because his idea of love has been dashed, but ashamed that he could have been so foolish and childish to believe in them in the first place. As he gets off the train and into the gate of the bazaar, he saw reality. He looked upon the men counting their money and the cheap gifts hanging from the rafters each as worthless as the next. That lulling voice of the silence no longer beckons him to continue his journey. But he turns around and walks outside those gates a man.
Clearly, we may find solace in the offset of these themes against one another; furthermore, we must weigh our equivocations against the exorable attack of dark, drab, impecunious imagery that Joyce assaults us with in “Araby” to create a vision of childhood that is vitiated of both life and hope.