An Introspective Case Into James Joyce’s Araby Essay

He elegantly personifies the homes on North capital of Virginia Street as conscious of decent lives at heart them which gazed at adept a nonher with br make imperturbable faces. And the lane itself blind (Joyce Pg. 328). These first fewer aviations of the inadequate lying boloney Araby indicate exactly what the story entails. What urgently awaits the reader, in crowd Joyces discovering tale of a youth male child who comes to terms with his repressively strict and illusory living environment, is a trus twainrthy reflection of the Authors own experiences as a capital of Irelander.The narration is intertwined with thoughts of escapism from a forever mundane instauration which lacks form and emotional granting immunity. Whether the transp bent symbolism, which balances this reflection, is strictly of religious prolongation or of purely psychological creed is non the discussion at hand. In fact, it is merely a coming of suppurate tale with a religious undertone as Joy ce neer disappoints to pull in his perspective on trust and life into his fiction.Araby begins by describing the town of Dublin, Ireland as quite forlorn and despairing a place that is non inescapably filled with adventure and spontaneity, as done the tellers subjective eyes. When we met in the street the houses had grown sombertowards it (the sky) the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. (Joyce Pg. 328) With key wrangle much(prenominal)(prenominal) as somber and feeble in the first few paragraphs alone, Joyce constitutes up a mood for the later darn. This description shows that the boy is not too fond of his surroundings in fact, undermining them.Tradition solelyy this fictional plot whitethorn be best set forth as piece of music measure society although, age relating Araby to Joyce we come to discover it may actually be man verses himself. The boy announces the career of our play brought us through the darkness muddy lanesto the back doors of the dark dripping gardens (Joyce Pg. 328). In one line alone the word dark becomes repetitive. Undeniably the author wishes to describe Dublin as the least of favorable places for a childs youth. This may set up an indication into a piece of individualized name by Joyce. The boy, whose name Joyce chooses to remain anonymous, is apparently struggling with the ommunity he resides in just as Joyce had done.This vie may be felt on a strictly psychological level the boy feels trapped among dissimilar characters he comes into contact with passim his daily routine his guardians, the drill master, the sottish men, bargaining women and shop boys of the market and the English speaking girl of the bazaar. These characters all form a negative impression on his perspective of the union. The youth boy recalls my aunt believed it was not some freemason affair in response to his inquiry for leave to attend the carnival (Joyce Pg. 30).Freemasons are members of an resistor brotherhood that were t hought to be of extreme adversary to the ideals of the church (Griffin). During school the boy quotes I watched my masters face pass from amiability to strictness describing the strict, forceful education provided in Dublin (Joyce Pg 330). This may be a simple reflection of the various foes Joyce has dealt with during his time in Ireland. For example, Richard Ellman, a noted biographer of Joyce, notes that Joyce was, at one point, a slight alcoholic and had gotten in an disturbance once in a bar in St.Stephens Green (Ellman 162). He in addition adds that while living with a man by the man of Oliver Gogarty, he was violently threatened with a pistol (Ellman 175). For Joyce, these are plainly a few of some of the harsh experiences living within Dublin. On the other hand, in Araby one character seems to contrast these emotions. An obsoleteer, curiously dismal girl, the sister of a close friend Mangan, seems to intrigue him in a spellbinding way. The young boy describes his first hand experience with her every(prenominal) morning I lay on the floor in the crusade parlor watching her door.I had never spoken to herand yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood. (Joyce Pg. 329) It seems the vote counter is emotionally dominated by obsession. With the use of the term foolish, he apparently openly admits of the level offtual conclusion to Araby when he realizes his befriending was merely a failed attempt at escapism. However, what sparks his interest in this specific girl is of the more or less riveting wonder. More significantly, what compels Joyce to construct such a romantic establish use of symbolism is under more precise interrogation.He is development the romantic endeavor to figuratively illustrate the storytellers informal struggle with society. A few indications amongst the introducing paragraphs that give clues to the narrators feelings are made apparent as he quotes The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash so that I could not be seen. (Joyce Pg. 329) In this line, Joyce signifies that his indifference to the Catholic culture may arrive been hidden as a child. If I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused reverence may show his confused feelings regarding this imbalance of emotions he experienced in Ireland (Joyce Pg 329).He intends to portray a story of youthful ignorance and naive nature, quite an than a tale of heartfelt admiration. He uses this plot to array a field of study that mirrors his own conclusion of Ireland Joyce could not absorb his own productive nature as a literary artist out of such a prosaic culture as a child. It may have lacked the necessary hunger, stimulation, and curiosity he so desperately desired. In The years of Bloom James Joyce, writer John McCourt speaks of how Joyce had a furiously allure early relationship with the Irish Roman Catholic Church (McCourt).He adds that Joyce also had an turn ego, Stephen Dedalus, which may help illustrate this in ner involvement with religion and the community. His confused, indifference can be portrayed through this alter ego as it has been through the naive journey of the young narrator in Araby. As the story of Araby eventually unfolds, we learn that the young boy is deluded by his crush. During his first actual encounter, he learned of her involvement with a convent, which in reality would have rendered her off the market but the narrator disregards this important point.His vain nature causes him to continue this obsession and pass it into the forecast for attending the bazaar rather than facing the reality that she has vowed to the church in becoming a Nun. In fact, this transfer of obsession only if shows that the stories underlie theme is not of romance but of self-love. As one amateur explains the outcome He has come to accept as just a life in which children play in joyless streets, girls cannot attend bazaars because of convent duties, old ladies collect used stamps for unwo rldly purposes, aunts mark time as this dark of Our Lord, and even drunken uncles cannot resist moralizing. After a chronology of events strengthens the narrators doubt and weakens his hope on winning over Mangans sister he suffers from a sense of disillusion. In reference to the concluding thoughts of the narrator, as Coulthard implies, most commentators omit religion from their list of disenchanting influences and regard anguish as the most important word in the narrators climactic memory of his disenchant boyhood experience(Coulthard). The boy reflects Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity and my eyes destroy with anguish and anger (Joyce Pg. 32).This shows that the boy has not overcome but, in a sense, matured. He has learned of his mistake and has accepted his unfortunate circumstances. It has been said that Joyce travelled back and forth from Ireland to Trieste, to Rome, and then London, then finally Zurich by 1912 never to retu rn to Ireland again (Geheber). It seems that the Narrators change of perspective passim the tale reflects Joyces contrasting alter-ego and indecisive outlook of the Irish-Roman Catholic culture illustrated by his travels.This someone psychology of naive verses wise nature portrayed by the narrators emotional change seems to capture a piece of Joyce that has been seen end-to-end his confusingly indifferent feelings with his homeland and the foes he has encountered during his life. The narrators feelings towards the community also become more defined after his comment on a specific book discovered in the back displace room of his home. Perhaps one of the most theme bearing points of the story, the narrator discovers three books.The first two speak of religious tolerance. The Abbot and The devout Communicator are two stories that directly signal highly religious fancys of immortal fearing, law abiding people of extreme holiness. These are both two topics that have been cognize to frustrate Joyce (Geheber). An Abbot is a superior of an abbey of monks (Hyperdictionary) while being Devout is to be completely devoted to a pious stamp (Merriam-Webster). This Devotion may go uncanny regarding whether the specific belief weds enormous sacrifice to livelihood.The last book, however, draws the boys interest he quotes I liked the last best because its leaves were yellow in reference to The Memoirs of Vidocq (Joyce Pg. 328). The significance to Joyce and the theme of Araby provided by this single reference is intense. As Coulthard notes, The Memoirs of Vidocq, the muniment of a French policeman and soldier of fortune, would have provided vicarious skirt from this Catholic discipline (Coulthard). Eugene Francois Vidocq was a French man of the 18th century who is described as having a mischievous nature causing him to be oftentimes at odds with his parents (Fleisher).Joyces use of this reference in Araby has more significance than otherwise noted by the naked eye . Vidocq can also be compared to feelings of rebellion being that he ran away from home due to deceitful acts of betrayal towards his own father. In the company of a young woman he ran off with, he traveled to various French seaports seeking passage to the New World (Fleisher). In the boys words as he describes the book as yellow, we beak a sense of relation to Vidocq as comparing the shade with a sense of bitterness and melancholy towards his own family and culture.Also, in a short biographical background of Joyce in The Norton Introduction to Literature, we learn that James Joyce had also eloped with a young woman Nora very similar to Vidocqs journey of exile (Hunter Pg. 391)(Fleisher). This is merely a self-reflection by the author, who makes a knockout note of incorporating his own experiences into this piece of literature. In the tale, Joyce continues to combine his own experiences living throughout Europe. It is said that immediately after graduating from the local Univers ity, as a young adventurous man, Joyce promptly fled to Paris (Ellman)(Hunter Pg. 91).Paris has evermore been k nown as a very artsy, open minded center of creative thinking (Walz). Descriptions of Paris in the early twentieth century may draw upon one to conclude a grippingly lucid contrast to the setting so symbolically portrayed in Araby. Joyce describes the transportation during the young boys trip to the Bazaar I strode down Buckingham street toward the stationI took my seat in a third-class carriage of a deserted train (Joyce Pg. 331). He goes on to describe the slow speed of the train as an intolerable delay. This is a great example of the large contrast to the well known pipe system of Paris at the time.There is no question that Joyces comparison of Paris to his indigenous Irish ascetic culture greatly influenced the context of his work. In reference to the popular surrealist culture arising in 20th century Paris one critic quotes In addition to its split known literary a nd artistic origins, the French surrealist movement drew transport from currents of psychological anxiety and rebellion running through a dull side of mass culture, specifically in fantastic popular fiction and sensationalistic journalism (Walz).Surrealism was a movement of writers and artists that used fantastic images to represent unconscious thoughts and dreams very similar to the display of symbolism used by Joyce in Araby. Additionally, this psychological anxiety and rebellion are exactly the primal emotions felt by the narrator through out his journey toward realism. Although Joyce was not a true surrealist, many of the techniques revolving around these literary methods can be easily seen within his work Ulysses (Ellis-Christensen).In this novel, Joyce uses the idea of a menses of consciousness. Although, less apparent, these same methods and techniques of thought will begin to come out among the lines of Araby, but in a much more figurative sense. I had hardly any patien ce with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire expresses the Narrator speaking of desire and an inner struggle with himself. These emotions by the narrator most certainly may be divided by the author as well, which initially drove him to Paris and throughout Europe as a young scholar.As Joyce tells the story through the narrators first person perspective, views on life and religion seems to become much more metaphorical than otherwise noticed upon a single study of the text. Additionally, in James Joyces Concept of the Underthough, Michael Harding explains Joyces use of existential thought in many of his works. He goes on to describe how famous Philosopher Ludwig Wittgensteins works on logic relating to ethical and religious points of view had a profound impact on Joyce (Harding).As Robert C. Solomon defines existentialism, it is disorientation or Confusion from a world based on planned indistinguishability and freeing ones mind to think from a non- teach perspective (Solomon). This idea of freedom which can be seen in the line when the Christian Brothers School set the boys free is exactly what the narrator strived for in Araby. Alone, this line summarizes Joyces thoughts on religion and how it intrudes on his thoughts of existentialism.Therefore, the underlying religious context of the story is only added by Joyce as a reference to illustrate a conditioned existence. As Coulthard comments But they were freed into an equally grim world where not even play brought pleasure, he shows how the entire story clarifies an entire existence of conditioning which Joyce spends many years of external influence deflecting (Coulthard). This is the basis for the theme of escapism and is directly denoted by his many years of philosophic inquisitive among other European nations.The entire theme, characters, and setting within the fictional tale of Araby have a much larger than fictional significance to Joyces life. Each line, phrase, a nd reference has a greater figurative meaning that applies to his struggles throughout his confused and imbalanced maturity while in Dublin. While never sure whether to accept the Irish Roman Catholic faith and always striving for something more, Joyce reflects on himself through the narrator of Araby and essentially uses this ale as his own form of escapism.He may have seen himself as an idealist, who felt hindered and hold in his childhood endeavors. From the description of a dark community, to the expression of initial hopefulness, and later self deceit he provides a plot to transcend his own feelings. With the addition of a romantic, yet philosophical context, Joyce clearly shows personal attachment of his perspective on religion and life into his fiction.