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 a big deal for us as the reader it probably felt like the end of the world for him seeing so many things go wrong in his mission to bring her back something from Araby.
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3 thoughts on “Shaniyah Chisolm Discussion 5”
Hello, I agree with what you said about the boy going through a sort of one sided puppy love phase. There isone point in the story where he goes to the room where the priest died to pray about his love. Aside from the priest there’s instances where he brings up religion like when he got to the bazaar and saw how empty it was he said it was like a church after it had been in service. At the end when he says, “…as a creature driven and derided by vanity..” He probably realizes that he has been disillusioning himself to mix religion with vanity.
Good Evening Shaniyah, Your post on the discussion board struck the right note, in my view. The only explanation for what the poor boy was going through while he experienced tunnel vision is infatuation. It’s very heartbreaking to observe how your brain may become transformed by something you long for so much. As we frequently observe, there is something or a particular period that causes us to feel as though the world is collapsing, and in my opinion, that was the entire period between dinner and his arrival. When the unfortunate boy realized he couldn’t do as he had intended, it was almost like he had become so enamored with what he thought he had to do, that he ended up not knowing what to do with himself.
Hello Shaniyah I also believe that the narrator was infatuated with the sister. I think he was not infatuated with the sister herself though but instead her beauty since we never learn anything about her not even the sisters name like you mention. Instead all we get is how the sister looks in the eyes of the narrator. I also don’t think that the narrator was uncomfortable in the only open stall as he only mentions how quiet it is in the bazaar. I do agree with how the story shows what infatuation will make you do since he was so blinded by her beauty that he didn’t even know what she would like back from the bazaar.