“Araby” by James Joyce is a story about a boy who thinks he is in love and his realization that what he is feeling is not love but a simple attraction towards someone he thinks is attractive. The narrator himself realizes this a little before the end of the story in paragraph 5 where,” if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration.” even when the narrator assumes he is in love he is confused about why he became like this. We the readers can also tell that something is wrong as the we don’t even learn the girls name. There is also nothing mentioned about her other than her beauty like in paragraph 9 where,” The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing.” When the narrator finally gets to go to Araby it is mostly closed except for a few stalls and he goes to shop at one. When asked by someone if he wished to buy something he says that he doesn’t and he pretends that he is interested in the vases and tea-sets. After leaving he realizes that he wasn’t in love with the girl as he didn’t even know anything about her. Instead he was in awe of her beauty and mistook it for love and is angry at himself for deluding himself into thinking it was love.
Daily Archives: September 25, 2022
Alex Barrios Professor Conway ENG 201 Sec. 0517 September 25, 2022 My takeaway from “Araby” is that things do not always go the way you want them to go and sometimes it can be extremely frustrating when there’s something you want so badly yet it feels like the universe conspires against you. Between bad timing and poor choices, it seemed like the circumstances were simply beyond the narrator’s control. I understand why it’s not a “Love” story while simultaneously understanding how others can view the story through those lenses. This is a person who was simply smitten and developed an obsessive crush to which the narrator goes about their day thinking about the girl and dreaming what it would be like to be the one who pleased her by providing a gift from the bazaar. I think had the narrator told the uncle about the girl he was interested in then perhaps maybe the uncle would’ve been more considerate and would even go as far as helping him reach the bazaar and pick out a gift.
Araby is a complicated short story as at first glance it seems to be about love. However, as you dive deeper you realize it is actually about a boy whose longing after a girl becomes an unhealthy obsession. He describes the world as gloomy and depressing with his description of the street he lives on as “conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces.” The only time he sees any sort of excitement in his life is when his crush, Mangan’s sister, is around him. He said “But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.” This statement clearly shows that he is crazy about her in an extremely unhealthy way. Furthermore, in the book he gets so nervous when she asks him a simple question, whether he will go to the bazaar. The first thing he says is why can’t she go. This along with the rest of the things he does in the short story clearly shows he is obsessed with her in an unhealthy way.
When I first read the title of this story, I thought that it would be more about nature. I thought that “Araby” was a very interesting piece, because it discussed love, but it wasn’t all around it being a love story. His surroundings are very gloomy and melancholy. He explains and describes that he is not happy in his environment. The narrator is in a very dark environment, however, the girl gives him light in his life. The narrator is very observant of this girl and admires her a lot and is very passionate about her. He becomes overly obsessive with her that whenever he hears, sees, or thinks about her, his dark life just disappears. She is like a distraction for him or even more so, a drug. Her presence is temporary but when she is there he craves it. He thinks about her and makes her do things that are very weird and creepy, it changes his behavior and body language.
“Araby” by James Joyce is not a love story. It is a story about a boy who is growing up and his fascination and obsession with his friend’s older sister. He speaks to her hardly ever in the story. The main interaction that the two of them share is when she talks about the Dublin bazaar that is happening that she wants to attend but can’t because of her school. The main character finally comes to terms with the fact that she is talking to him, he lies and says that he was planning on going and will get something for her. The only other times he says her is when she calls her brother in for dinner. Or when he would watch her from afar. There is no real connection between the two of them. He watches her and follows her around time. He thinks about her and how he would approach her as a way to escape from the monotonous day-to-day of his school work and home life with his Aunt and Uncle. This is the story of a young boy’s obsessive crush, not one of two people in love.
“Araby” by James Joyce did not feel like a love story at all. The narrator describes his day to day life and his surroundings seem like a very gloomy, sombre and a piercingly lonely environment. We get a very overwhelming contrast between “the dark” reality the narrator lives in and “the light” that the girl he is infatuated with represents for him. We don’t know much of the story of his childhood but we learn that he lives with his uncle and aunt. I believe there might be an implied connection that the lack of parents in his life and his very joyless, dull outlook on the surrounding world grows in what seems like “an obsession” with the only source of a positive sensation which his friend’s sister represents. His emotions are overpowering: “Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom.” His emotions seems to be very powerful but we don’t see much of a romantic connotation in his mind. It’s almost like this obsession gives him some sort of purpose or a distraction from a hostile reality.
I believe “Araby” by James Joyce is about infatuation and anticipation regarding young people “falling in love” for the first time. I’d agree in saying Araby is not a love story but follows the emotions someone naive would go through for someone they like. Usually, in love stories, authors highlight the name of the character they are in love with, but James purposely leaves out both the narrator’s and friend’s sister’s names. Mangan is the only bridge between the two characters. I think this was done to incorporate the theme of the boy being blinded by love. Throughout the story, we see how much the narrator thinks about Mangan’s sister and going to Araby to bring her something. The narrator was so deadset on making sure he was able to impress Mangan’s sister that he wanted to go to Araby to get her something because she wasn’t able to go. He was impatient but had to wait all day to be able to go. He built up a lot of anticipation for going to Araby to find a gift when it was time to go he was first disappointed that his Uncle, the one who was supposed to give him the money to go, arrived late alluding to the fact that his Uncle had been drinking. After getting the money he went to Araby but upon arrival realized it was about to close for the night. He went to the only open stalls but the people running it made him uncomfortable. Overall, I think Araby is really about what infatuation will make you do. His infatuation blinded him that all he could focus on doing was bringing her something from the bazaar. When he failed to do so, his whole world came crashing down. So this may not seem like […]
In the short story “Araby” by James Joyce is about a boy who is overly obsessive over Mangan’s sister. He would hide in the shadows or even go further by laying on the floor in the front pariour watching her door. In the story when Mangan’s sister and him was conversing, he found out that she couldn’t go to the bazaar. He told her that if he goes, he’ll bring her back something. He was blinded by her beauty that he would go beyond lengths just to give her a gift. On Saturday, he reminded his uncle that he was going to the bazaar in the evening only for his uncle to forget and come in the house at nine o’clock. His uncle prolonged in giving him the money buy eating then saying, “the people are in bed and after their first sleep now”. but the boy didn’t want to hear it. he was fixating on buy this crush a gift. when he finally reaches to bazaar, he doesn’t buy anything which made him upset.
“Araby” is not a love story. This story is more of a “wake up to reality” for the narrator. Throughout the story, the narrator uses many literary devices to show the setting of the place he lives in and mainly talks about this girl he seems to be fascinated by. In my opinion, he is more obsessive than fascinated. He noticed the times she leaves, so he would leave at the same time, but it wouldn’t be for an actual conversation. This friendship or “relationship” that they have with each other is more one-sided because the narrator seems to be more interested in her than she is. This can’t be a love story if only one person is interested more than the other person. Throughout the story, the narrator talks to the girl and she brings up a “bazaar” that she wants to go to, but she isn’t able to. This led to an idea for the narrator in going to the bazaar himself to buy the girl a gift to show his “attraction” to her. Eventually, he ends up going to the bazaar, but he arrived late due to his uncle not arriving in time to give him money. When he arrived, everything was basically closed and the only shop that was open didn’t have something that was worth gifting. At the end of that night, he felt frustrated, asking himself why he went all this way for something he didn’t need to do. This made him realize he didn’t have a love for the girl and felt that he made a fool out of himself because he went all that way for nothing.
