Category: Araby

The short story “Araby” is about an unnamed young boy living with his aunt and uncle in Dublin, Ireland. The boy lives on a quiet, blind street with several houses and the Christian Brother’s school, which the boy attends. He likes looking through the belongings left behind by the former tenant of his house, a priest who died in the back drawing room. The boy describes his wintry nights in the dark street playing with his friends until Mangan’s sister comes out to get Mangan, one of his friends. It is during these brief interactions that the unnamed boy begins to notice her physical appearance and develops a crush. He later then becomes infatuated with her and he starts to think of her all the time, he even imagines carrying her like a “chalice safely through a throng of foes.” The boy doesn’t bother to try and talk to the girl, but instead finds satisfaction by daydreaming about her. One day he goes into the back drawing-room in which the priest had died and Mangan’s sister speaks with him, she asks him if he is attending the Araby bazaar which she then tells him she can’t attend due to her convent having a retreat, hearing this the boy jumped to the opportunity and promises the girl that he would get her something from the event if he were to go. By this time his fantasies increase, and not only did he fantasize about the girl, but he now fantasizes about the araby bazaar which leads him to lose focus in school and he starts to feel like his teachers are getting stricter with him. On Saturday morning he reminds his uncle about his plan to go to the Bazaar, but as time passes, around 9 pm, his uncle still has not arrived home, and he starts to get anxious. By the time his uncle arrived home, he had forgotten about the boy’s plan and he also made him late for the event, so when he finally arrived at the Araby bazaar it was shutting down and he could not get anything for Mangan’s sister. Disillusioned by what he sees at the bazaar, the boy finally sees himself as readers have seen him for much of the story. He realizes his vanity and foolishness, his unprofitable use of time, the futility of life in Dublin, that Mangan’s sister likely has no interest in him, and that there is no magical ‘Araby’ in Ireland. (Wesley, Owl Eyes Editor)

The short story “Yellow Wallpaper” is about a woman who writes in her diary and is also suffering from post-partum depression, the story is written in the form of diary entries. She first begins by describing the large, elaborate home that she and her husband, John, have rented for the summer. The woman’s husband John is a family physician, who is an extremely practical man. They rented this house solely for John’s wife to be exposed to clean fresh air and a calm environment so that she can recover from what he sees as a slight hysterical tendency. The woman is often writing in her dairy complaining that her husband will not listen to her worries about her condition and she feels like he is treating her like a child, when she is not writing in her diary she studies the house and she believes that there is something strange and mysterious about the house, but as usual her husband dismissed her concerns, stating that it is just her act of imagination. She secretly writes in her diary because she misses writing and conversation which she was banned from worrying that it will overwork her also for part of her career she is also banned from doing any other work besides domestic work

They are sleeping in the room at the top of the house, which she believed was used as a nursery since it has barred windows and peeling yellow wallpaper. This yellow wallpaper becomes a major focus in the story, as she grows obsessed with trying to decipher its seemingly incomprehensible, illogical patterns She continues to hide her diary from John and grows more and more convinced that the wallpaper contains a malicious force that threatens the whole home. When she can escape the attention of her husband and Jennie, his sister, she continues her study of the wallpaper and begins to imagine that she can see a mysterious figure hiding behind the top pattern. As she grows more paranoid about the house, she tries to convince her husband that they should leave the house, but he insists that he is seeing progress in her treatment and says indulging her concerns could be dangerous for her treatment and it also teaches self-control. As time passes by, her depression, fatigue, and her fascination with the wallpaper worsens, in her diary she writes about her progress in uncovering the secrets of its pattern and concludes that the figure she sees in the pattern is a woman trapped behind bars. She makes it a mission of hers to free the lady, she hides all of this from her husband and his sister, and she starts to even to keep the secrets from her diary. At the climax of the story, her mental breakdown becomes complete and her insanity somehow makes her convince herself to believe that she is the woman being trapped behind the wallpaper when her husbands come to check her out and discover her creeping around the room and faints. The Araby and Yellow Wallpaper are both completely different short stories based on their themes. The Araby focuses more on love and sexuality while the yellow wallpaper focuses primarily on mental illness and how it’s treated.

In the short story Araby One One of the central issues of “Araby” is the boy developing a crush on Mangan’s sister and the discovery of his sexuality. it shows the boy’s evolution by describing how he was brought up in a sheltered neighborhood, where there were only certain types of people who lived there, and then using physical descriptions of Mangan’s sister to highlight the boy’s budding sexuality. The young boy lives on a “blind” street, a dead end that is secluded and not frequented by outsiders, Additionally, he attends an all-boys school, which suggests that he does not know many girls and how to interact with them, that is why he couldn’t talk with his crush except the time where she approached him. Because of his lack of female knowledge he immediately falls for his friend’s somewhat older sister and thinks of his infatuation as a kind of worldliness that only solidifies the sense of his lack of experience with girls. We see the boy’s growing sexuality is further captured in his detailed descriptions of Mangan’s sister’s physical form: “Her dress swung as she moved her body and the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side.” The author here captures the way that the boy is both physically seeing Mangan’s sister, and yet also how this way of seeing her is so new to him as to be almost innocent. He is not thinking of sex; he may not even know what sex is. But he is aware of and appreciative of her physicality in an essentially idealistic way. The boy is clearly infatuated with Mangan’s sister, we can see that it is not real love because he only physically thinks of her and there are no details about her personality, he has not spoken with her to get to know who she is. The boy’s relationship with Mangan’s sister is just a crush and his thinking that it is love just demonstrates how naïve and innocent he is. As he tries and fails to buy a meaningful gift for Mangan’s sister he also realized that what he thought is love is vanity, his love toward Mangan’s sister is not because he desires her physically and emotionally like a lover would, but what he desired was acknowledgment and acceptance from her, he then realized that whatever he feels for her, she might have felt the same, so he felt anguish and anger upon his realization.

Introduction:

James Joyce’s short story ‘Araby’ offers readers a glimpse into the life of an unnamed young boy living in Dublin, Ireland. The story is narrated in the first person, allowing us to delve into the mind of the protagonist. This character analysis essay will examine the narrator in ‘Araby,’ exploring his personality, motivations, and the transformation he undergoes throughout the story.

Body:

Observant and Reflective:

The narrator in ‘Araby’ is a keen observer of his surroundings. He pays close attention to details and provides vivid descriptions of the people and places he encounters. His ability to observe and reflect reveals a thoughtful and introspective nature. Through his observations, we gain insight into his inner thoughts and emotions.

Romantic Idealism:

The narrator exhibits a strong sense of romantic idealism. He becomes infatuated with his friend’s older sister, whom he refers to as “Mangan’s sister.” The object of his affection becomes an idealized figure in his mind, representing his dreams and desires. His infatuation leads him to fantasize about the possibilities of a relationship with her and to construct elaborate narratives around her.

Innocence and Naivety:

The narrator’s youth and innocence are evident throughout the story. He is naive in matters of love and relationships, often misinterpreting simple gestures and interactions. His limited experience contributes to his idealized perception of love, as he imagines it to be a grand and transformative force. However, his innocence also leaves him susceptible to disappointment and disillusionment.

Frustration and Disillusionment:

As the story progresses, the narrator experiences frustration and disillusionment. His efforts to connect with Mangan’s sister and fulfill his romantic fantasies are met with obstacles. He is hindered by social constraints, his own insecurities, and the indifferent attitude of the sister. These challenges shatter his idealistic notions and lead to a growing sense of disappointment and disillusionment.

Epiphany and Self-Realization:

Towards the end of the story, the narrator has a moment of epiphany and self-realization. He recognizes the futility of his infatuation and the emptiness of his pursuit. The bazaar he longed to visit, symbolizing the fulfillment of his desires, turns out to be a disappointment, mirroring his own dashed hopes. This realization marks a turning point in the narrator’s understanding of himself and the world around him.

Themes of Coming-of-Age and Loss of Innocence:

The character of the narrator embodies the themes of coming-of-age and the loss of innocence. Through his journey in ‘Araby,’ he confronts the harsh realities of the adult world and the complexities of human relationships. The story highlights the inevitable disillusionment that accompanies the transition from childhood to adulthood.

Conclusion:

The narrator in ‘Araby’ is a complex character whose observations and reflections provide readers with a deeper understanding of his thoughts, emotions, and journey. His romantic idealism, innocence, frustration, and eventual disillusionment contribute to the story’s exploration of themes such as unfulfilled desires, the loss of innocence, and the harsh realities of life. Through the narrator’s character, James Joyce invites readers to reflect on their own experiences of growing up, navigating the complexities of relationships, and the moments of self-realization that shape our understanding of the world.

James Joyce’s “Araby,” as the Norton Anthology notes, is equal parts realistic and symbolic and, as such, entails a highly suggestive reading. In particular, Joyce’s language does a lot for the story’s overall realistic effect, as it incites visual imagery in its depictions of scenes and characters’ actions. As well, it glorifies the object of the protagonist’s affection, Mangan’s sister. Its content, on the other hand, informs its inherent symbolism: it makes a motif out of the term “blind” and its implications, and, most notably, draws on several sacred images to produce a religious undertone for the story. Both of these symbolic maneuvers will essentialize the story’s end; the narrator’s shame in his vanity and his burning eyes demonstrate the story’s parabolic nature, and therefore seemingly rid “Araby” of its affectionate storyline. By emphasizing the story’s content, namely its motifs and religious imagery, and thus through religiously-charged epiphany, this paper will argue that Joyce shows that love is indeed what motivates the protagonist’s action, where readers may feel compelled to view vanity as the driving factor.

Joyce makes literal use of love’s blindness to establish that what drives the protagonist to take on a grand gesture is not vanity but love. The beginning of the story makes sure to highlight darkness as a hindrance, creating the illusion that there is something to overcome in it: “North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers’ School set the boys free” (Joyce 407). Joyce aims to show that the street on which the protagonist lives already presents the challenge that “any quest in Dublin will lead to a dead-end” (Collins 85). However, that the schoolboys are successful in livening the street with their play each night incites joy, and presents the ever-looming darkness as no hindrance at all. The second time in as many pages the narrator uses the term “blind” to describe the means through which he gazes at Mangan’s sister each morning: “Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlor watching her door. The blind was pulled down within an inch of the sash so that I could not be seen” (Joyce 408). Just as the blindness of his street produces an illusion of silence that the protagonist each night breaks, so does this blindness between him and Mangan’s sister create a sense of envelopment, as it is the means through which the two are kept separate; yet it is also how the narrator sees her and continuously develops feelings for her. In this sense, the protagonist is still in the dark, just as his play at night is still in the dark, and we may argue that love’s blindness is still loved.

What perhaps best demonstrates that the protagonist is motivated by love for Mangan’s sister is the final line of the story in which he assumes he has not been persuaded by such a force: “Gazing up at into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity, and my eyes burned with anguish and anger” (Joyce 411). While the narrator knows that there is shame in what has motivated him to come to the Araby in search of a gift for Mangan’s sister, what propels him to such a realization is the conversation he overhears with the women and two men operating a kiosk at the bazaar: “At the door of the stall a young lady was talking and laughing with two young gentlemen” (Joyce 410). Up until this moment, the boy had been consistently enthralled with the thought of bringing his beloved a gift; afterward, he wishes no longer to do so. This lingering moment in which he overhears the woman flirting with the two men is the one in which he recognizes his love for Mangan’s sister cannot possibly be any different, and as such he has been vain to assume it is. Despite this, however, Joyce again describes a darkness into which the boy comes out, his eyes burning at the sight of it. Author Margot Norris writes “The story’s closing moral turns on itself by concluding with a parabolic maneuver, by having the narrative consciousness turn itself into a symbol of’ something, as Gabriel Conroy might put it” (Norris 46). Arguably, the narrative consciousness turns itself into a symbol of blindness, and is informed by this repetitive darkness, and the numbing of the narrator’s senses: “All my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: ‘O love! O love!’ many times” (Joyce 408). That the protagonist finds himself in recurrent blindness shows that he is indeed motivated by love, as to find himself again in the dark means that, while it may blanket him and his senses, his feelings for Mangan’s sister remain real, just as the blind is the means through which he watches her, and the silence of North Richmond Street does not hinder play.

The closing lines of the story also entail a religiously-charged epiphany, arguably resulting from Joyce’s recurring use of sacred symbols and blindness throughout the narrative. In keeping with Norris’s argument, Joyce’s “Araby” does indeed close with a parabolic maneuver, that of the epiphany and its religious implications. However, the way in which Joyce utilizes this literary device is counter to the effects of the story’s religious undertones. Time and again throughout the narrative, religious symbols, metaphors, and rituals are alluded to, most notably the “central apple tree” in the garden, and, of course, the previous tenant of the house being a priest. These two examples are given within the story’s opening two paragraphs, informing readers of the possibility of the priest’s life in the narrator’s home being of influence to the narrator’s practices, and, with the allusion to the Tree of Knowledge in the apple tree, that he will experience a fall of some kind. Looking at the motif of blindness, we have already discussed its illusionary tendency in the story, making it useful in proving love to be the motivating factor for the protagonist. As well, this motif may play to the illusion of the protagonist’s religious practices. Author Harry Stone writes of the scene in the back drawing room: “The boy is about to lose himself in an ecstasy of devotion, and Joyce wants us to see that the boy is tenanting the same rooms and worshipping at the same shrines as the dead priest […] the boy, like the priest, has begun to mix devotion with profanation, spirituality with materialism” (Stone 361). If we are to look at the darkness as a symbol for the boy’s faith, we may read this scene, in which he notes that “it [is] a dark and rainy evening” (Joyce 408), as the boy worshipping at the thought of Mangan’s sister, and thus declaring his spirituality. The boy, however, notes a distant light, which can be interpreted as what Stone suggests is his devotion mixing with profanation and materialism, which may otherwise suggest that his devotion to Mangan’s sister is not one to be read in religious terms but in affectionate terms. Profanation being one’s deliberate rejection of religion, the boy can be seen to reject any devoutly-driven devotion to Mangan’s sister.

The narrator’s epiphany in the final lines, while he may feel he has been driven by vanity, is therefore argued to not at all be driven by such a force. As Norris argues, the story does indeed conclude with a parabolic maneuver, one in which we may view the boy as allegorizing the Christian teachings of the sin of idolatry, which results in his immediate penance at the realization of his acts, and thus the foreshadowed allusion to the story of Genesis takes shape. However, the story ends in the same darkness that has many times deluded our protagonist, here, it gives him the feeling that he has been motivated by negative forces. That darkness can also be said to symbolize the boy’s religious beliefs, it remains that he is indeed motivated by his affection for Mangan’s sister, as the darkness is an illusion of his faith.

James Joyce’s “Araby,” in its conclusion, portrays vanity as the protagonist’s motivation for completing a grand gesture for his love, Mangan’s sister. While the many religious symbols in the narrative do well to prove this, showing that the boy worships only an idol and crushes on Mangan’s sister for the wrong reasons, these images, along with the motif of blindness, can instead be seen to prove that inherent in his affections for this girl is a true feeling of love which show that the boy is not at all driven by sinful motives. Ironically, this duality in the role of religion is a perfect example of its preaching that two wrongs do not make a right.

1. Araby. By:- James Joyce (1883-1941)

Summary:-

The boy lives with his auntie and uncle on a rather quiet or road in Dublin, in a house in which resided a priest (who has died) . The kid is inspired and to some degree perplexed by the mildew-covered books, an authentic sentiment, a devout tract, and a criminologist life account, and different notices of the past occupant.

The activity of the story starts with the kids’ amusements, played in the paths and lawns of the area amid the winter sundown. These diversions end when the sister of one of the young men—named Mangan—calls her younger sibling in to his tea. The picture of this young lady remaining in the lit entryway so fixes itself in the kid’s creative ability that he starts to seek after her modestly in the road. Indeed, even in the clamor of the week by week shopping for food, he conveys with him an inclination about her that adds up to something like otherworldly happiness.

At that point, at some point, while the other young men are playing, she inquires as to whether he is setting off to a bazaar, named Araby. She is unfit to go as a result of religious exercises at her school, yet he embraces to proceed to bring her a blessing. This short discussion and the possibility of the trek to the bazaar makes the kid lose fixation on his exercises and respect his mates with despise.

The Saturday of the bazaar is intensely anguishing for the kid. He needs to trust that his uncle will get back home and give him the required pocket cash. He pulls back from play and meanders through the upper void rooms of the house, longing for the young lady. His anxiety amid suppertime is intensified by the babble of a meeting lady. At long last, at nine o’clock, his uncle arrives home, fairly alcoholic, for his supper.

When he sets out finally, the kid finds that he is distant from everyone else on the unique train masterminded the bazaar, lastly lands there at 9:50 p.m. In his flurry, he pays the grown-up expense at the entryway, just to find that the bazaar is going to close and the day’s take is being tallied. Reluctantly, he approaches one of only a handful couple of slows down still open, one selling earthenware. The young woman accountable for this slow down stops quickly in her chitchat with two young fellows to take care of the kid’s timid enthusiasm for her products. He is so put off by the entirety of his failure and her manner of speaking, nonetheless, that he chooses not to purchase anything. Rather, he basically remains there amidst the obscuring bazaar, angered at the disloyalty of his expectations and the breaking of his dreams.

2. Bellflower. By:- Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)

Summary :-

Bellflower took place in a town that Maupassant depicted as a huge town however not very enormous to be known as a town. This town was a couple of hundred off and settled cycle a dark extension church. As what has been referenced in the past passage, there were three phases of plot in this story. This was what made it somewhat convoluted. The primary stage was the point at which the develop author depicted his sentiment of being spooky by his own memory. The second stage was the point at which the author retold his beloved memory about Mother Bellflower. At that point, the third stage was when the essayist retold the story he got notification from the medicinal man about the order of how Bellflower lost her leg when she was youthful. Generally, the setting of the story was in the author’s home. Hearing the word house probably gives us a tone of warmness and love. When we are in our very own home, we would get the cheerful sentiment of a social affair with our family and companions. This was presumably what Maupassant attempted to give which was the environment of family relationships. In the story, the closeness of Mother Bellflower and the essayist was expressed unmistakably. The author likewise thought about the woman as his second mother. This was the estimation of family relationships. At that point, another tone was inflexibility which Mother Bellflower appeared all through her mentality. Misery, astonishing, and stunning tone showed up when the essayist found the woman dead in the cloth room. It gives us an environment of distress.

Close to the author’s house, Bellflower also occurred in a school building where the youthful Bellflower worked. She functioned as a sewing educator which implied that she was an informed young lady. In this structure, she had a show with her first love, Sigisbert, who caused her limped. There was a sentimental tone when she and Sigisbert got together in the storehouse. This tone gave us an environment of bliss and enthusiasm. Be that as it may, at that point, the sentimental tone transformed into an unfortunate and unnerving tone after Bellflower bounced out the window. No one was ever told what exactly had happened, a story was made up about what had happened and everyone was told that story. The narrator’s mother cried and father said a few words in a grievance, After hearing this dreadful story about the mother bellflower.

3. The Bet. By:- Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904)

Summary:-

Fifteen years back, a gathering was tossed at an investor’s home, where numerous scholarly people such as columnists and legal counselors visited. Amid that party, the gathering in participation had numerous vivacious exchanges, at last going to the point of the death penalty. As the gathering contended, the different sides of the discussion combine into two agents: the financier, who is for the death penalty and trusts that it is increasingly benevolent, and a legal counselor, who trusts that life detainment is the better alternative, because of its conservation of life. The lawyer believes that any life is superior to none, and that life can’t be removed by the legislature, since life can’t be given back if the administration understands that it committed an error.

The banker and the legal advisor choose to go into a wager, with the financier betting that the legal advisor couldn’t withstand 5 years of detainment. The legal advisor, youthful and hopeful, chooses to raise the stakes and makes the wager longer: 15 years. On the off chance that he could last to the finish of his sentence, the legal counselor would get two million rubles for winning the wager. The broker can’t comprehend his favorable luck, and even offers the youthful legal advisor an exit plan, saying that he is being rushed and absurd. By and by, the legal counselor chooses to adhere to his promise and the wager is done.

For a long time, the legal counselor lives on the financier’s property, in a little hotel, and has no human contact. He can have anything that he wants. At first, the legal advisor does not comfort himself with any alcohol or tobacco, binding himself to play the piano. In any case, as the years advance, he gives in and invests a lot of his energy alcohol or snoozing.

Afterward, the primary focal point of his time progresses toward becoming books, as he scans for experiences and solaces that he can’t have physically. He exploits the investor’s capacity to give any book and asks that the financier test the aftereffect of his perusing by discharging two shots in the greenhouse if his interpretations of a few dialects is in reality faultless. The investor submits and affirms the legal counselor’s doubt that he has aced dialects. As the years pass by, the legal counselor peruses essentially every classification under the sun. He advances from the lighter perusing of the early years to the thick content of the Gospels and Shakespeare. The broker, at this point, has become bankrupt because of his own rashness and betting. He starts to stress that the attorney wagered with him will demolish him monetarily.

The investor starts to trust against all expectations that the legal counselor will break his pledge and lose the wager. He doesn’t feel regret at his underhanded musings, pardoning them on the premise that they are in his very own best advantage. Actually, the financier even figures out how to persuade himself that the legal counselor is improving end of the arrangement, since he will in any case be generally youthful at 40, and, with the 2 million rubbles, moderately rich.

In light of this, the broker goes to research how the attorney is getting along. He finds that his detainee is snoozing at his work area, looking a lot more established and haggard than he at any point envisioned him to be. Subsequent to watching him for a couple of moments, the investor sees a letter on the table.

In it, the legal advisor broadcasts his aim to repudiate natural merchandise for the otherworldly favors. The detainee has turned out to be completely disenchanted amid his bondage. He has built up an exceptional contempt for different people and trusts that there is nothing that he or they can do to ever accommodate this gorge. To demonstrate his reality, the legal counselor chooses to leave his jail five hours before the selected time, and disavows his case to the two million, in this manner liberating the financier from his obligation and from money-related ruin. The broker cries and kisses the detainee with help. The following day, gatekeepers alert the investor of the legal counselor’s departure, and the broker is unsurprised. He strolls over, takes the letter from the cabin, and secures it a flame-resistant safe.

4. The Elephant’s child. By:- Rudyard Kipling

Initially, the elephant had a short nose and the span of a boot, adaptable yet futile for getting a handle on things. One little elephant was voraciously curious. He asked such huge numbers of inquiries that every one of his relations hit him. He asked his aunt the ostrich why her feathers were the way they were. He also asked his uncle to giraffe why his skin had brown scales. He asked many other questions like he asked his hairy uncle the baboon why the melons tasted as they do.All of them never answered his questions. One day he inquired:

‘What does the Crocodile have for supper?’

They all hit him and instructed him to quiet. As no one answered him so his curiosity raised so at that point he asked Kolokolo Bird, who guided him to go to the Limpopo River and discover. In transit there he met and asked the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, who additionally hit him. At that point he went to the stream and found the Crocodile, at first he thought that it was just a log. He asked the crocodile what he ate for supper at this The crocodile instructed him to come and hear the murmured answer. When he approached, the Crocodile got him by his nose and attempted to maneuver him into the water.

The Elephant’s Child opposed, helped by the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, yet his nose was maneuverer out into a long trunk before the Crocodile let go. He discovered he could utilize it to swat flies, pick grass, and accumulate mud to cool his head. It was additionally helpful for grabbing litter and for beating his relatives when he returned home. In the long run they all went to the waterway to get trunks from the Crocodile, and no one punished anyone anymore.

5. The gift of Magi. By:- O. Henry

The story recounts a youthful wedded couple, James, known as Jim, and Della Dillingham. The couple has almost no cash and lives in an unobtrusive condo. Between them, they have just two belongings that they think about their fortunes: Jim’s gold pocket watch that had a place with his dad and his granddad, and Della’s lustrous, long hair that falls nearly to her knees.

It’s Christmas Eve, and Della ends up coming up short on time to purchase Jim a Christmas present. In the wake of paying the majority of the bills, all Della has left is $1.87 to put toward Jim’s Christmas present. Edgy to discover him the ideal blessing, out she goes into the cool December day, looking in shop windows for something she can bear.

She needs to purchase Jim a chain for his pocket watch, however, they’re hard and fast of her value go. Surging home, Della pulls down her excellent hair and stands before the mirror, appreciating it and considering it. After an unexpected motivation, she surges out again and has her hairstyle to sell. Della gets $20.00 for offering her hair, sufficiently only to purchase the platinum chain she found in a shop window for $21.00.

At the point when Jim gets back home from work, he gazes at Della, attempting to make sense of what’s diverse about her. She concedes that she sold her hair to purchase his present. Before she can offer it to him, be that as it may, Jim calmly hauls a bundle out of his jacket pocket and hands it to her. Inside, Della finds a couple of exorbitant embellishing hair brushes that she’d since a long time ago respected, yet are presently totally pointless since she’s removed her hair. Concealing her tears, she hops up and holds out her present for Jim: the watch chain. Jim shrugs, flounders down onto the old couch, puts his hands behind his head and tells Della straight that he sold his watch to get her brushes.

The story closes with a correlation of Jim and Della’s presents to the presents that the Magi, or three savvy men, gave to Baby Jesus in the trough in the scriptural story of Christmas. The storyteller reasons that Jim and Della are far more astute than the Magi in light of the fact that their endowments are blessings of adoration, and the individuals who give out of affection and selflessness are genuinely insightful in light of the fact that they know the estimation of self-giving adoration.

Araby is one of fifteen stories from Dubliners which is written by James Joyce. Each story in the collection involves some failure and illusion, which results in realization and disappointment. Araby is one of those stories that follow a theme of uncertainty between the real and the ideal in life. The young boy’s journey from his first love to despair takes the readers to the intense content of the literary world. We can evaluate and interpret a piece of work in various ways. As the methods of criticism have some similarities, they also differ in other ways. For this reason, this paper will analyze Araby by comparing Reader Response and New Criticism theories in order to asses the strengths of these two approaches. These approaches share some features but they are also two very opposing methods. Reader-Response focuses on the text which is influenced by the reader’s thoughts. New Criticism aims to analyze the text alone without the influence. However, the two methods also share the same characteristics. These both approaches do not care about the author’s iyntentions and they both recognize the details from the texts. Through the close reading of Araby and comparison of these two critical theories, readers will critically analyze the symbolic meanings in characters, setting, objects and they will be aware of the fact that they are in a constant journey of discovery for the different meanings in the text by the evolving activity of the participatory reading.

The symbolic imagery is rich in “Araby” and the ordinary images contain deep symbolic significance so by analyzing these symbols in the text through New Criticism approach, readers are able to have a better understanding of the short story’s importance and artistic value. New Criticism’s goal is to demonstrate coherence with a harmony created by all its working parts. It is a type of formalist literary criticism that focuses on literary devices to analyze the text with a close reading method. Symbols allow us to go deeper beneath what is visible. In the story of Araby, the importance of symbolism in the setting, starts at the beginning of the story and continues till the end. Araby begins with a description of North Richmond Street where the unnamed boy lives with his uncle and aunt. The extensive detail in the description of the setting and atmosphere in the short story involves some negative adjectives such as “blind”, “cold” and “silent”(Joyce, 249). The symbolic meaning of the blind street represents the message that the boy is hopelessly romantic and he will not see a certain end for his romance. The lifeless atmosphere of Dublin streets and shady conditions of people are reflected by emphasizing the independent houses from each other. The dull and vivid setting represented with the darkness symbol throughout the story. The narrator thinks that if he goes to that Eastern Bazaar, the amazing experience will lead him to a new adventure which is an escape from his ordinary life. The setting creates a gloomy tone in order to reflect the ambiguity of the people’s lives in Dublin. The nonsensical realities such as slow train and uncle’s lateness create a delay in his plan and tension throughout the story. For instance, real problems sometimes can ruin the plans of the people that they are creating in their mind. The narrator also realizes that everything can not go according to our plans because the world out there is the ultimate reality after all. The title of the Araby is also implying a deep symbolic meaning. It points out the infinite charm of the exotic oriental world. Araby is an eastern name and it enchants the boy’s vision. Besides being glamorous, Araby is a symbolic place that reminds his love, idealism, and visionary escapism. When he arrives at the bazaar, the only thing he sees the darkness of reality. As he starts to hear the gossiping of the women, he finds nothing exotic and he does not want to buy anything for the girl from Bazaar called Araby. He suddenly realizes the boredom of life which is not a land of beauty and romance. He gives up and realizes that he does not have to buy a gift to express his love for her. Additionally, Mangan’s sister is one of the major symbols in the story. The unnamed girl is the idol that the narrator admires a lot. The little boy seems satisfied and thankful to see her from his parlor window. He is shy because he hides in order to prevent her from seeing him. The unnamed boy discovers his sexual and emotional feelings for the first time and he is also afraid of these strange and sudden changes in his adolescent life. When he finally gets a chance to talk to her, he does not know how to answer her. He does not know why his eyes are often full of tears when thinking of her. The boy is so confused about love that he does not know how to experience and express it. He is in the middle of an identity crisis and he thinks that the only escape from his inner conflict is the unnamed girl. There is another symbolic role that the boy’s uncle plays it. He represents some values and attitudes which seem like an obstacle for the boy’s objectives. The boy has a sensibility towards the girl and he is afraid of his uncle to catch him watching her. Morality and tradition are represented by the figure of the uncle. The boy thinks that any relationship between a boy and a girl without marriage will portray a figure of shame in the eyes of his uncle. However, as the uncle inhibits the boy’s liberating spirit to rise, the boy’s power of struggle is vanishing. The boy falls apart when his uncle says that he is unable to give money for the gift. His idealist character and his faith in love get huge damage from his uncle’s apathy. With the apathetic actions of the uncle, the boy realizes the brutal world of people. The uncle’s vision of life clashes with the kid’s world of idealism. The representations of the symbols in characters and in setting unite the emotional confusion of the narrator and his unawareness of the place that he lives in. For these reasons, the complexity of the text itself creates a rising action that climaxes with the story’s outlook.

On the other hand, the first person narrative allows the reader to understand the hidden emotions and thoughts of the narrator. “I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child’s play, ugly monotonous child’s play” (Joyce, 252). This quote explains that the boy is longing for the freedom of adulthood but also does not escape from the prison of the predictability of his childhood. According to the reader response theory, the only thing matters is it’s what the reader gets out of it. For some readers, the meaning of desire can be different. It may not only refer to a sexual feeling but can also be the freedom that the boy never obtained. For this reason, Araby encourages the readers to explore his or her thoughts by reading the story over and over again. The readers can interpret different meaning every time they read the story. The themes of the story are endlessly waiting, frustration, love, dark and brightness can affect the reader and create different mental images in the readers’ minds. For these reasons, the admiration of Araby always demands a very emotional reader who has the ability to remember their childhood desires, longings, and annoyances, anger. The illusions and disappointments of the readers’ own growing up problems intentionally lead them to compare their own personalities, experiences with those of the narrator of the story. This process will eventually trigger their emotions to understand the profound meaning of the context in Joyce’s story and enables them to appreciate it. Moreover, the text provides empirical evidence such as diction, allusion and imagery and those provide rhetorical effect and guides the readers ’ understanding throughout the story. For example, level of diction used in the story is standard and by focusing on words like “litanies” instead of chants and “gauntlet” instead of streets creates an atmosphere that the narrator is an active participant in the events in the story. He uses past tense verbs like “gazed”, “detached” and so on. “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity, and my eyes burned with anguish and anger” (Joyce, 254). According to this quote, the narrator realizes that he expected the world to care about his feelings and he feels disguise for his egocentric thoughts. There is also some biblical illusions that connect with the James Joyce’s Araby and if the reader has a familiarity with cultural references and literary allusions, they may not have a hard time to understand the profound meaning of the sentences that are used in the text. According to the reader response theory, the reader should have an ability to fill the gaps and this reader is called as “the implied reader”. For instance, Joyce describes a garden with an apple tree at its center at the beginning of the story. This is where the children and the narrator play but it also refers to the Garden of Eden, the loss of paradise. The implied reader can easily become aware of the loss of innocence of the narrator after seeing the reality that there is no escape from Dublin. As the narrator creates ways of escape through the bazaar and his crush, religious images and illusions point out the harsh reality of the world. Another religious image used in the story is the “chalice”(Joyce, 250). The narrator’s mental image of the Mangan’s sister is associated with the chalice as he moves through the market place. His obsession with this unnamed girl is described as a religious experience throughout the story. Searching for the mystical object which is the gift for the Mangan’s sister will transport him to heaven. The story also points out the fact that Mangan’s sister cannot go to Araby because she has a retreat at the convent. Some implied readers may also think that Mangan’s sister is in training to be a nun. From this perspective, the narrator’s infatuation will not be a happy ending. Also, religion controls the lives of the inhabitants of North Richmond Street. Mangan’s sister’s name sounds saintly in praises to the boy. He falls into a love trap that he never sees the real life. He is blindly lovesick that he cannot see the real demands around him and react. Unlike New Criticism, Reader-Response criticism of Araby allows the readers to see the ultimate meaning of Joyce’s story so the reader always in a constant journey of discovery while reading the text.

Furthermore, one of the themes in the Araby is brightness and darkness. For instance, the light from the window which is very dim is demonstrated in the text. It symbolizes that there is a little hope for the boy and for the love he feels towards Mangan’s sister. His obsession for this young girl is so unhealthy that his emotions are controlled by his every action. The darkness of the unsafe environment of bazaar allowed him to see the world with his own eyes. Also the heartbreak and the frustration that he experienced throughout this love journey lead him to become a mature young man. Although it is seen that Araby is told from the first person point of view of a very young protagonist, we never perceive the effect that a boy tells the story. Instead, the narrator reacts as a mature man apart from the experience of the story. The older individual is looking back on this episode in his life by his own physical vision, his eyes. The mature man becomes very nostalgic about his youthful hopes, desires, and anger. The boy’s mind recollects the events of the story for us so, in that particular way of telling the story provides us to receive clear knowledge about youth experiences when concepts which are concerned with both sacred and earthly love are ruined. If the narrator tells his thoughts from the present point of view, then readers can see exaggerated feelings and slightly different thoughts. The word Araby also changes its connotations from the exotic and mysteriously romantic area to one of an insignificance place. The connotation change in the story implies the boy’s journey from romantic love to misery. The world he designed for himself is changed, altered by making errors or unintentional alterations. It never offers him space for his love of youth and idealism so that the boy has to accept his unsuccessfulness in his search to win the affection of the girl. For now, romance, love, and idealism can continue to live or exist only in his imagination. Therefore he feels stupid and disappointed as a result of his foolish efforts to achieve his dream. As New Critics search for the tension, irony, and paradox in texts, Araby is also a story that represents irony. For instance, there is a sort of dramatic irony that the priest’s room and the priest’s life. The priest room is “smelly, stuffy and damp” and full of “old unnecessary papers”(Joyce, 249). There is also a “tenant’s rusty bicycle-pump”(Joyce, 249) that gives his life a very indifference impression of shabbiness. If we think normally, a priest should live in a tidy and clean place and have religious holy books with him so in that way he is estimated to be a good example for his parishioners but the place that is described in the story of Araby is very cluttered and gloomy. Besides the priest seems to enjoy reading more secular books such as “The Memoirs of Vidocq” and “The Abbot” rather than Holy Scriptures. In this manner, religion is represented as a fashion that losing its prestige and its importance in street life as time passes.

As a result, the story of Araby focuses on the oppressive nature that religion affects the minds and lives of people at that time in Dublin, Ireland. This religion oppression leads the narrator to embrace a false perception of reality and it creates a false perception about sexuality as well because of that, the story presents an escape. On the surface of the story little seems to happen but with the close and participatory reading, beneath it, the reader will discover precise disagreements and changes become revealed and apparent. Through the journey begins as the narrator listens to the sounds of innocent child’s play, it ends with the loneliness of humankind in a gloomy, sad world and the conflicts in the story resolve itself into the unity and coherence of meaning.

“Araby”, a short story apart of Joyce’s, Dubliners, is rich with culture and symbolism, dripped in a veiled jab at the drab culture of Ireland. The interaction of light and dark are mostly addressed in Araby to support the setting and narrator alike, helping to set the tone and give a realistic aspect to the story. The use of imagery is vital to the plot and growth of Araby, particularly so for the narrator because the play between light and dark helps explain and add depth to what the narrator feels and his anagnorisis, or epiphany, of the reality of life.

In symbolism, light traditionally represents a theme of hope and optimism, a high moral. The light is where happiness seems to grow. The association of good and safe, always go hand in hand with light. There is always a sun rising over the horizon, implying an opportunity and relief after difficulty or chaos. “White and Black Are Perceptual Symbols of Moral Purity and Pollution,” (Sherman & Clore 2009). The opposite of light is dark, in the same way, darkness has represented human emotions and connections, mainly fear or despair. The dark and black are associated with infection or the action of perverting something pure. With the implications of moral involved with light and dark, black and white, Joyce uses that connotation and the idea of black and dim to present the thought of immortality, the distant feeling of aloofness, or indifference. “The concept of immorality should activate ‘‘black,’’ not because immoral things tend to be black, but because immorality acts like the color black (e.g., it contaminates).” (Sherman & Clore 2009). James Joyce uses the literature and mental idea of light and dark to expand on the traditional connotations of light and darkness in his short story, “Araby”.

The story opens with a solemn look upon the narrator’s life, his very surroundings are thickets of depressing images, “The negative connotations associated with the city of Dublin illustrate the boy’s state of despondency and hopelessness.” (Rokeya & Ahammed 2016). His world is one of spiritual stagnation, and as a result, the boy’s outlook is severely limited. He is ignorant and therefore innocent. Lonely, imaginative, and isolated, he lacks the understanding necessary for evaluation and perspective. He is at first as blind as his world, but Joyce prepares us for his eventual perceptive awakening by tempering his blindness with an unconscious rejection of his static world. The narrator was innocent and so very naive, finding joy in the macabre and desolate, “The boy can project wonder upon even the unremarkable and decayed, those things which would commonly be thought to represent loss and death.” (Muhlestien 2010). The narrator’s innocence is what fuels the story to stretch into a theme of light and optimism. This happiness is shown through the imagery of light the reader sees through the narrator’s eyes.

The story truly begins with the narrator, a young boy, set on a futile quest to find love with a girl, whom he hardly knows and is much older than himself. Joyce uses the idea of light to represent not only hope but unrealistic idealism and illusion. The narrator begins to fall in love only to find, that his love begins to fall apart as he walks along the silent and dark bazaar. The bazaar efficiently pervades the boy’s mind, “Fulfilling the atmosphere of asceticism, that the reality is greatly contradicted with the ideal romance in the protagonist’s mind.” (Ko 2013). Alternatively, darkness represents the reality and truth behind the narrator’s situation. Joyce uses light and darkness as a symbol between the clash of fantasy and reality that takes place within the narrator.

In the beginning, the narrator lives with his mindset firmly in the real world with only a passing thought for the whimsy. As the “Ever-changing violet” (Joyce 237), sky turned to night, he played in the dark streets with his comrades, shouting in the empty street before leaving for the tracks behind the houses. There, in the “Dark muddy lanes,” (Joyce 237), populated only by rugged cottage folk, the narrator plays with his friends throughout the evening. Through the “Back doors of the dark dripping gardens,”(Joyce 237), to the “Dark odorous stables,” (Joyce 237) he would travel. “The nature of this area is grave and gloomy with dusky twilight, with ever-changing violet colour sky and stinging cold air.” (Salma 2012). Joyce intentionally used somber adjectives to set the stage for reality to look and taste like a dark whiskey, spilling down the throat. He did not expect much of the world and his simple world expected little of him. These grim surroundings were the extent of the narrator’s life. The narrator inhabits this world of darkness where everything is understood to be the way it appeared. The darkness represents the accustomed bitter taste of reality.

When the narrator first encounters the young lady, named Mangan, his friends older sister, he can only see her silhouetted in the light. The very picture of an angel, come down to the dark shadows of actuality. This first sighting is the beginning of his infatuation for the girl. After his discovery, he is plagued by thoughts of the girl which make his daily obligations seem like, “Ugly, monotonous, child’s play.” (Joyce 239). Now, with a glance of the light, the normal routines of his morose reality are set beside each other in stark difference of one another. The narrator no longer wants to rely on the crutch of everyday life, rather he wants to entertain the light and fantastical idea of him and Mangan. He has become blinded by the light. The narrator fails to see that his infatuation with a woman considerably older than himself is not appropriate. He begins to relish in his fascination, choosing to be thrown into the shining white of optimism shunning the darkness of his life before Mangan. The narrator is engulfed by the false light that is his futile love.

The narrator continues locked in his own head of his own violation, heady on the light emitted by his love, “In this inert world suddenly a flash of light falls. That ray of love in no time changes everything in and around the boy” (Salma 2012). Then the bazaar, called Araby, came into town. His lady love expressed her desire to attend the bazaar. On a whim, the narrator, alive with the presence of Mandan’s light, said, “If I go, I said, I will bring you something,” (Joyce 239) with these words, the narrator began his slow descent back into the dark of reality, even if he didn’t realize it. As the narrator prepares to visit the bazaar, a shift takes place. His light begins to turn to darkness as reality sinks in. While waiting for his uncle to come home so he can leave himself, the narrator looks over at the dark house where his lady lives. He then stands there, merely visualizing, “The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck.” (Joyce 239) . There is darkness at the girl’s house where there used to be light, and he tries to preserve the lighted image in his head.

The boy walks to the bazaar, the clock still a globe of light in the dark, reminding him of his hope, a light shining in the darkness. When he reaches the bazaar, however, even with the colored lamps lighting up many of the kiosks, most of the hall remains dark, echoing his growing disassociation. As he progresses through the bazaar, the scene becomes even more and more simply lit, “Nearly all the stalls were closed and the greater part of the hall was in darkness. I recognized a silence like that which pervades a church after a service. I walked into the center of the bazaar timidly” (Joyce 241). Finally, as the narrator’s time runs out, he realizes the foolishness of his vain endeavor, the lights along the path go out, and he is left in complete darkness.

The imagery of darkness falls over the eyes of the reader, showing the dawning realization of the narrator’s capricious, helpless, feeling of love. The narrator believed he was in love, and he happily chased the illusion of happiness that belief gave him until he was presented with reality. The darkness slunk in as he realized his love was merely a shade to distract himself from the dreary droll of life, ‘Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance.’ (Joyce 238). He had created what he desired in his own life, romance, mystery, and joy. He recognized how everything was a sham, a reality built by himself. And when the narrator fully accepted this, reality came back to haunt his heels, with the dark pooling at the corners of his fraud version of the world.

The use of light and dark imagery in Araby is important because Joyce never explicitly tells the reader what the narrator is feeling, instead, he uses the setting of light and dark to portray what the narrator is experiencing internally. Joyce examples the imagery of darkness to paint, “A grim portrait of the social and romantic possibilities available to such individuals,” (Muhlestien 2010) and counteracts the dark by portraying the narrator’s naive behavior as a shining light to pierce through reality, “The boy can project wonder upon even the unremarkable and decayed, those things which would commonly be thought to represent loss and death.” (Muhlestien 2010). Joyce’s narrator travels to the bazaar alone, aiding the plight of reality to sink back into the boy’s mind, “This is an oppression which makes the protagonist be even lonely in mind as a result. In “Araby”, the first-person narrator, James Joyce, does not describe explicitly in words how the protagonist feels, instead, he leads the readers to experience it by themselves, to enter the protagonist’s affection through what are seen from his eyes, heard from ears.” (Ko 2013).

In the short story, “Araby”, James Joyce uses the contrast between light and darkness to add another dimension to the conflict between illusion and actuality with which the narrator struggles. The narrator is blinded by the illusion of love and courage represented by light and comes to a realization of his fruitless ambition as darkness sets in. The theme of fantasy crushed by reality is emphasized by this juxtaposition: at the beginning of the story the protagonist bathes in the light of his pipe dream, and in the end he comes to discover his foolishness and is abandoned in the dark, reflecting on his actions, “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity, and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.’ (Joyce 242).