Araby
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Araby
“I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.” An action, one characterized by lack of emotional will power; ‘falling in love’ is but several degrees shy of inevitability for all males presented with the realities of life on planet Earth. In his short story “Araby”, James Joyce presents the reader with an anonymous young boy, coming to terms with what his existence will be in his native land of Ireland (Dublin). Hormonal and impulsive, the young boy is blind to the deceptive nature of love, and the romantic ideals for which it encapsulates. Further bound by the circumstance of his existence, colonized Dublin of the nineteenth century hardly allows for the religious and moral freedom once envisioned by revolutionary Irishmen, who not only envisioned, but spilt blood to ascertain these freedoms not for themselves, but for all future citizens of Ireland. The young boy of the story is, to an extent, aware of the monotonous anticlimax his life will become, and as such, romances idealized realities which will carry him away from such conclusion. A young boy, unfortunate enough to be born into a system which favors religions, accents, and a man’s ability to generate revenue, must cast his gaze past these boundaries to achieve the possibility, the mere chance, of having self sustaining happiness in life. Through a collective epiphany the boy is forced to realize that life cannot be possible without deception and disappointment, and this realization results in disillusionment. The meaning of the story can be found in the young boy’s journey from first love to despair and disappointment, and the theme is revealed in the boy’s discovery of the discrepancy between the real and the ideal in life.
The main character or protagonist of the story is the anonymous young boy who narrates almost the entire story in the first person. Absent of biological parents, the young boy lives in a lower class society with his aunt and uncle. Although alone, the uncle holds minimal character importance, his alcoholism does take affect on the protagonist, and is perhaps the reason they trio is living in poverty. Timid and shy, the young boy socializes with boys his age who live on his block. There is a directly unmentioned feeling about the boy, that he understands the repetitious cycle of his life, and with the realization, if but nothing more then on a subconscious level, he desires to change it. With an obvious Irish Roman Catholic upbringing, the young boy holds a certain quality that seems to make him inquisitive of real life events on a biblical platform. Although somewhat dark and saddened, the boy plays, “until his body glows.” Although purposely intended to receive pity, the young boy is shown to still posses the simple qualities that embody all active youth, with the ability to simply “play”. A comrade of the young boy, Mangan, has an older sister who is shown to be a person of authority in relationship to the young boy, however it is soon illustrated that Mangan’s sister is the antagonist to the young boy by becoming his love interest. “Her dress swung as she moved and the soft rope of her hair swung from side to side.” When introduced she is seen to be the only illuminated figure on a dark and cold street, and this image presents the reader with an almost angelic perception of her. The protagonist, living in a world with no other apparent female social contact, develops an interest in the antagonist that at times seems to be almost an obsession. He peruses her in a way, that one would pursue a religion, with intensive study, dedication and commitment, and finally with the willingness to go to great lengths to gain approval. It is in this pursuit, that a light is cast upon the theme, the young boy constructs a fantasy based reality of the girl, and without any verbal contact, or indication of reciprocation of the emotions in which he feels, he daydreams his way into making her a figure of significant importance, such to the extent, that his happiness will be determined by her mere approval. The young boy’s romantic thoughts are far from reality, and he subconsciously allows her to represent far more then a love interest, she begins to occupy his entire reason for existence, and he will be forced to face that his ideological understanding of her is no more then that.
Set in a deteriorating lower class Dublin neighborhood, with the majority of the action taking place in a house once owned by a Catholic priest, the plot itself would not be able to take place without being coupled with this particular setting. Taking place in nineteenth century, British controlled Dublin, the story and its characters do not exist inside the city, as the city more accurately exists around them. Through collective indications, the boy is not pleased with living in Dublin, and wishes