This story “Araby” by James Joyce to me is about an adolescent boy that has become curious about his friends older sister. He is starting to recognize his feelings and affinity for the opposite sex and he starts to fantasize about the young lady described. He is not yet at the point where he is ready to approach her and confess his feelings. He has only had a few mild interactions with her, small talk. The fantasy he as poured so much though into exists only in his mind. He seems to be at a time in his life where he is transitioning from a child to a pre teen or teenager. He still plays with his friends and hides from adults, but he also has all these powerful emotions that he doesn’t quite know how to process. He can’t take his focus off of the young lady, he thinks of only her while he is in school or at home. He takes the time to watch he door, waiting for her to appear.
When he finally does have an impromptu conversation with his crush, they end up talking about the Araby bazaar, she casually mentions that she would love to go and it would be splendid. He takes intense notice of every movement she makes and it seems as if he amplifies it in his mind. It is in this fashion that he takes on the mission in his mind to make it to the bazaar. He had promised to bring her something if he went, he could not miss this event. This was his chance to actually show his crush some affection in real life. He makes his plans to go by getting permission from his aunt and uncle. The days leading up to the bazaar he could think of nothing else. In typical preteen style tragedy, he does make it to the bazaar after some delays due to his uncle forgetting, but he ends up not purchasing anything for his crush.
I have lived this story in many different ways as a pre teen and teenager. It is a time where you don’t know how to handle your feelings and you also have a tidal wave of them. Like the character in the story, you may not have the confidence to communicate them, so you live in your head. The fantasy is better than the feared reality of rejection. Great story
2 thoughts on “James Terry Discussion 5”
James, this is a very insightful response to the prompt. I especially like the personal comments you make at the end about your own experience of adolescence and its confusion and choices. However, I decided to change the prompt. Since yours was the only post at this point, I felt I could do it without creating too much confusion. I really want us to focus on character analysis. This is a challenging story in some ways, and many students do not relate to or understand what happens at the end. I think that the best way to unravel a difficult story is to analyze the main character. This kind of analysis will help students with other stories and works of literature we will be reading. Please feel free to address the new prompt. However, you wthis is not mandatory for you, and you will receive full credit for your earlier post.
Thank you for the valuable comment. I also enjoyed the reading of it, because you identify the experience of this boy with yours. I consider that it was not just “the transition” to the teenage stage, it was something greater, what concerns not only his feelings to the girl, but to the life generally. However, the interesting thing about this story is that there can be a lot of interpretation of it. What has this boy seen at the end of the story looking to the sky? Depends on the reader’s perception and experience.