“Araby” by James Joyce is a miserable story about a young boy coming to realize the distinction between his fantastic hope and reality in the world. At first the narrator does fall in love with Mangan’s sister. He imagines her day and night to the extent he has no idea where and how to express his love to her. One day he finally gets a chance to talk with her, and their first topic of conversion is going to a bazaar Araby. Unfortunately, the girl can’t go because “there would be a retreat that week in her convent”. Even though she can’t go and explore Araby with him together, the boy still behaves normally. At this time, his hope about the wonderful things in the world has expanded from a solely girl to a splendid bazaar. He is full of enthusiasm for Araby. Because it is a place that his admired girl recommended to him, he still wants to visit it even if on his own. However, he came to a place nothing special than a normal bazaar, which is even worse than he imagines from the indifferent treatment of the lady. He should have shared and described the beautiful scene to the girl but ends up disappointed about the reality that is far more than imagination from children. After reading the story, I am wondering about how the boy will describe Araby to the girl.
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One thought on “Jiaxing Rong Discussion 5”
I had the same interpretation that the young boy is using his friends sister as more of a distraction from the town and his life as opposed to truly being in love with this girl. I agree when you say the disappointment about the reality is for more than the imagination from children, he is indeed a young boy and created a fantasy in his head. He will continue to be dissatisfied until his life has a drastic change.