This story is not so much of a love story as it’s closer to a cautionary tale. This story is rich with literary devices to The symbolism in “Araby” is very prominent and indicative of the young narrators naiveté. To give some context to the story, the nameless narrator we know to be a young boy, falls in love with this considerably older woman he hardly knows anything about. She is always presented in a positive bright light. He is deeply infatuated with her. While on the other hand, truth and reality are always tossed aside in the darkened background. He has a very literal black and white way of thinking. Of course, with this much blind infatuation doesn’t end up well. He ends up not being able to impress her by getting her something at their local bazaar. It seems like by the end of the story he realizes how foolish he was going as far as to call himself a “creature driven and derided by vanity”. I like where this story ended. I think anything more or less would have lessened the impact of the last sentiment.
Daily Archives: September 20, 2022
I wanted to respond to the Week 4 discussion about “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara. I was very impressed by many of your comments in which you compared two characters from the story. Many of you discussed Mercedes, who serves as the “outlier,” as Eoin observed in his post. Clearly, she learns nothing from the expedition and only feels more hopeful that she might someday be accepted into the society represented by the clientele of the toy store. I don’t think she realizes how unrealistic that dream of acceptance actually is. There was also some excellent discussion of the interesting character Miss Moore, whom some critics say represents Black empowerment soon to come historically. I was glad to see mention of the other minor characters too, each of whom has slightly different reactions to what Miss Moore is trying to show them. They are so insulated in their world that they do not even realize their own poverty until this trip to the toy store. Some of you focused on Sugar, Sylvia’s best friend, who arrives at an intellectual response to “the lesson.” She is able to make observations about societal inequity and pose rhetorical questions about democracy, but that is as far as she takes the lesson of Miss Moore. It is only Sylvia who learns something about herself. She is an interesting, dynamic character, who runs through a gamut of emotions during the story. At first, she is cynical, wisecracking, and offhand about the venture. She is the clear leader in the group, which is why Miss Moore entrusts her with the taxi money, yet as the story develops readers see that there is deep vulnerability behind her tough exterior. She truly understands that she is not part of the world she has just been introduced to, […]
After reading Araby, I feel like many of us could have had a similar situation like this in our life. The narrator is so full of light and positivity and that it fills his head whenever discussing Mangans sister but when life and reality actually hits him it’s always a more negative and dull mood. The narrator fantasizes about this girl and he doesn’t even know her name, he’s so infatuated with her and that’s how it is whenever you have a crush, but the feelings aren’t mutual back. All the little things he wants to do to get her attention only end up hurting him more in the end. The frustration starts to build throughout the story when things don’t go his way and this is just the reality of how life is. This disappointment and frustration that the narrator feels at the end of the story is quite a normal feeling for the people because they all have their own life to live, the Dubliners are focused on survival instead of love. The frustration really sets in at the end of the story when the narrator finally comes to the realization that this is just an illusion that he’s come up with and it won’t come true.
The short story “Salvation” by Langston Hughes is centered around the ideas of transformation and faith. At the beginning of the story, the young and naive narrator has been taught and adheres to the image of faith. In place of faith, he mentally pictures Jesus as a human figure and expects him to be a real, tangible person. It’s not his fault he took this idea so literally. His entire environment supported this kind of idea. Upon learning that Jesus wouldn’t actually appear in front of him, he is so upset he denounces his faith all together. If anything, with his worldview, this seemed inevitable. The tone of the story changes to be more melancholic and helpless as his whole life was based on faith before he understood what that meant.
