Araby

ArabyBy James JoyceThe unnamed protagonist in "Araby" is a boy who is just starting to come into his sexual identity. Through his first-person narration, the reader is immersed at the start of the story in the drab life that people live on North Richmond Street, which seems to be illuminated only by the verve and imagination of the children who, despite the growing darkness that comes during the winter months, insist on playing "until [their] bodies glowed." Even though the conditions of this neighborhood leave much to be desired, the children’s play is infused with their almost magical way of perceiving the world, which the narrator dutifully conveys to the reader:“Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses where we ran the gantlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odors arose from the ash pits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness.”But though these boys "career" around the neighborhood in a very childlike way, they are also aware of and interested in the adult world, as represented by their spying on the narrator’s uncle as he comes home from work a nd, more importantly, on Mangan’s sister, whose dress “swung as she moved” and whose “soft rope of hair tossed from side to side.” These boys are on the brink of sexual awareness and, awed by the mystery of the opposite sex, are hungry for knowledge.On one rainy evening, the boy secludes himself in a soundless, dark drawing-room and gives his feelings for her full release: "I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: O love! O love! Many times." This scene is the culminat ion of the narrator’s increasingly romantic idealization of Mangan’s sister. By the time he actually speaks to her, he has built up such an unrealistic idea of her that he can barely put sentences together: “When she addressed the first words to me I was s o confused that I did not know what to answer. She asked me if I was going to Araby. I forget whether I answered yes or no.” But the narrator recovers splendidly: when Mangan’s sister dolefully states that she will not be able to go to Araby, he gallantly offers to bring something back for her.The narrator now cannot wait to go to the Araby bazaar and procure for his beloved some grand gift that will endear him to her. And though his aunt frets, hoping that it is not “some Freemason affair,” and though his uncle, perhaps intoxicated, perhaps stingy, arrives so late from work and equivocates so much that he almost keeps the narrator from being able to go, the intrepid narrator heads out of the house, tightly clenching a florin, in spite of the late hour, toward the bazaar.But the Araby market turns out not to be the most fantastic place he had hoped it would be. It is late; most of the stalls are closed. The only sound is "the fall of coins" as men count their money. Worst of all, however, is the vision of sexuality -- of his future -- that he receives when he stops at one of the few remaining open stalls. The young woman minding the stall is engaged in a conversation with two young men. Though he is potentially a customer, she only grudgingly and briefly waits on him before returning to her frivolous conversation. His idealized vision of Araby is destroyed, along with his idealized vision of Mangan’s sister: and of love. With shame and anger rising within him, he exits the bazaar.As this story uses a first person limited narration, the most complex and developed character in the story is the narrator. The narratorfaces two distinct challenges in "Araby": the challenge of growing into manhood and the challenge of growing intellectually and emotionally in an environment so poisonous to the imagination that it all but guarantees a life of drudgery. The one informs the other; the destruction of the narrator’s dreams at the end of Araby come precisely from the disillusionment he experiences when he goes to the bazaar. The narrator's dreams are heroic ones, romantic ones; he goes on a quest, one not so different from those knights embarked upon in the name of Ideal Love, to procure a gift worthy of his Beloved. When he fails in his quest, he sees the world for what it is, and thus takes his first steps into adulthood. Ironically, it is at this moment when he enters the adult world that we can expect his growth in many ways to cease. Before, when he was simply a boy playing with other boys, he was able to tease magic from the mundane actions of others and the monochrome environs of North Richmond Street; now that he has seen the Araby market for what it really is, the magic he once perceived is gone.Other characters in the story serve mostly as catalysts, foils, and filters for the narrator’s feelings and observations. Theironically-presented priest, dead before the start of the story, is dead for a reason: religion is portrayed not only as moribund, but as life-draining and hypocritical. The narrator’s aunt and uncle act ashis surrogate parents, and their presence in the story raises the ominous questi on “What happened to his parents?” Furthermore, they are representatives of the adult world, and it is fair to say that, though they work hard and perhaps mean well, they provide little for the narrator to look forward to as he grows into a man. Certainly the female shopkeeper and her two male companions, by bringing the narrator to his unwelcome realization, play an important, if small, part in the drama of the story.But by far the most important minor character in the story is Mangan’s sister, as she giv es rise to all of the major action in the story. Although she inspires the story’s action, the reader learns almost nothing about her. Her hair is like soft rope, her dress moves when she walks, she owns a silver bracelet and she cannot go to Araby because her convent has a retreat that conflicts with it; little more is revealed. If we can be reasonably sure that we know what the narrator knows, we can conclude that it is not so much Mangan’s sister as an actual person that captivates the narrator, but his idea of her, and by extension of Love. As Sheila Conboy writes in her article "Exhibition and Inhibition: The Body Scene in Dubliners," "While the boy narrates the process of his sexual awakening, the girl remains anonymous, merely the petticoated object of his desire, never given a voice to express a desire of herown." Because the narrator treats Mangan’s sister as only an object of desire -- as opposed to a person capable of desires -- reality is destined to disappoint him. Through Mangan’s sister, we co me to understand that the narrator at the end of the story is not only distraught because his idea of love has been dashed, but ashamed that he could have been so foolish and childish to believe in it in the first place. Though his view of the world may henceforth be less romantic, it might be fairer to women. Interpreted as such, the “quest” is not fruitless, because it helps the narrator come toself-knowledge. Jerome Mandel states in his essay "The Structure of 'Araby',": “the quest is successful because it leads to vision and epiphany: coming to some understanding of oneself."。