Araby (story)
Encyclopedia
"Araby" is a short story by James Joyce
published in his 1914 collection Dubliners
.
But though these boys "career" around the neighbourhood 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 and, 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 culmination 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 so 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.
, 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. The ironically-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 as his surrogate 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 gives 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 school 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 her own." 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 come 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 to self-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."
’ School (O'Connells CBS) did not so much dismiss students for the day as "set them free." A quick scan of the important adjectives in the first paragraph -- "blind," "quiet," "uninhabited," "detached," "square," "decent," "brown," "imperturbable" -- quickly presents a world that is practical, simple, and unmitigatingly stultifying. As mentioned before, the boys who play in the neighbourhood are able, somehow, to discover some beauty and wonder even from these simple surroundings, but to do so they must become connoisseurs of darkness: the lanterns on North Richmond are "feeble," the lanes are "dark" and "muddy," the houses “sombre” in the winter twilight, the "dark dripping gardens" redolent with the smell coming from their “ashpits.” This description of the street and the lives the boys live on it serve as the backdrop that we will use to understand how much more imaginative the Araby market will or will not be.
Of course, the story’s greatest irony is just how misnamed the Araby market is. It is certainly not a wondrous evocation of the West’s idealized and romanticized notions of the Middle East. Rather, it is exactly the sort of disappointing market you would expect to appear in the Dublin Joyce describes. It is dark, mostly empty, hushed, and more focused on money than anything else. The market at the end of the story, by closer resembling the rest of his life than the image of it he had conjured in his daydreams, forces the narrator to a bleak realization: the stark realities of day-to-day living have little to do with the ideals we carry in our heads.
These themes build on one another entirely through the thoughts of the young boy who serves as the focalized for the narrator-focalizer, who is the same boy as an adult.
in particular. As with many of the stories in the collection, Araby involves a character going on a journey, the end result of which is fruitless, and ends with the character going back to where he came from. Eveline
is just one other story in Dubliners to feature a circular journey in this manner. Also, the narrator lives with his aunt and uncle, although his uncle appears to be a portrait of Joyce's father, and may be seen as a prototype for Stephen Dedalus of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
and Ulysses
. The scorn the narrator has for his uncle is certainly consistent with the scorn Joyce showed for his father, and the lack of "good" parents is pertinent.
" was John Updike, whose oft-anthologized short story, "A&P
", is a contemporary (1960s American) reimagining of Joyce's tale of a young man, lately the wiser for his frustrating infatuation with a beautiful but inaccessible girl. Her allure has excited him into confusing his emergeent sexual impulses for those of honor and chivalry, and brought about disillusionment and a loss of innocence.
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
published in his 1914 collection Dubliners
Dubliners
Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. They were meant to be a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century....
.
Plot
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 neighbourhood 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:But though these boys "career" around the neighbourhood 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 and, 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 culmination 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 so 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
Bazaar
A bazaar , Cypriot Greek: pantopoula) is a permanent merchandising area, marketplace, or street of shops where goods and services are exchanged or sold. The term is sometimes also used to refer to the "network of merchants, bankers and craftsmen" who work that area...
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.
Characters
As this story uses a first person limited narration, the most complex and developed character in the story is the narrator. 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 questQuest
In mythology and literature, a quest, a journey towards a goal, serves as a plot device and as a symbol. Quests appear in the folklore of every nation and also figure prominently in non-national cultures. In literature, the objects of quests require great exertion on the part of the hero, and...
, 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
Araby
Araby may refer to:* Araby , a historic home listed on the NRHP* "Araby" , from James Joyce's 1914 Dubliners* Araby , a country in the Warhammer Fantasy setting by Games Workshop* Araby, LA, USA...
market for what it really is, the magic he once perceived is gone. The ironically-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 as his surrogate 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 gives 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 school 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 her own." 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 come 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 to self-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."
Setting
The details of Araby are immensely important in setting the mood; dreary, dark Dublin is the living, symbolic backdrop for the story. The gloomy atmosphere of North Richmond street that actually sets the scene at the start of the story is an anticipation of what lies ahead for the little boy in the bazaar of Araby. The first sentence of the story lets us know that North Richmond street is "blind," meaning a dead end, and that the Christian BrothersCongregation of Christian Brothers
The Congregation of Christian Brothers is a worldwide religious community within the Catholic Church, founded by Blessed Edmund Rice. The Christian Brothers, as they are commonly known, chiefly work for the evangelisation and education of youth, but are involved in many ministries, especially with...
’ School (O'Connells CBS) did not so much dismiss students for the day as "set them free." A quick scan of the important adjectives in the first paragraph -- "blind," "quiet," "uninhabited," "detached," "square," "decent," "brown," "imperturbable" -- quickly presents a world that is practical, simple, and unmitigatingly stultifying. As mentioned before, the boys who play in the neighbourhood are able, somehow, to discover some beauty and wonder even from these simple surroundings, but to do so they must become connoisseurs of darkness: the lanterns on North Richmond are "feeble," the lanes are "dark" and "muddy," the houses “sombre” in the winter twilight, the "dark dripping gardens" redolent with the smell coming from their “ashpits.” This description of the street and the lives the boys live on it serve as the backdrop that we will use to understand how much more imaginative the Araby market will or will not be.
Of course, the story’s greatest irony is just how misnamed the Araby market is. It is certainly not a wondrous evocation of the West’s idealized and romanticized notions of the Middle East. Rather, it is exactly the sort of disappointing market you would expect to appear in the Dublin Joyce describes. It is dark, mostly empty, hushed, and more focused on money than anything else. The market at the end of the story, by closer resembling the rest of his life than the image of it he had conjured in his daydreams, forces the narrator to a bleak realization: the stark realities of day-to-day living have little to do with the ideals we carry in our heads.
Themes
Araby touches on a great number of themes:- Coming of age
- The loss of innocence
- The life of the mind versus poverty (both physical and intellectual)
- The dangers of idealization
- The decreasing significance of the church, despite the preservation of empty ceremonies
- The pain that often comes when one encounters love in reality instead of its elevated form.
These themes build on one another entirely through the thoughts of the young boy who serves as the focalized for the narrator-focalizer, who is the same boy as an adult.
Romantic elements
Araby contains many themes and traits common to Joyce in general and DublinersDubliners
Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. They were meant to be a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century....
in particular. As with many of the stories in the collection, Araby involves a character going on a journey, the end result of which is fruitless, and ends with the character going back to where he came from. Eveline
Eveline
Eveline is a story from Dubliners by James Joyce.-The story :A young woman of about nineteen years of age sits by her window, waiting to leave home. She muses on the aspects of her life that are driving her away, while "in her nostrils was the smell of dusty cretonne". Her mother has died as has...
is just one other story in Dubliners to feature a circular journey in this manner. Also, the narrator lives with his aunt and uncle, although his uncle appears to be a portrait of Joyce's father, and may be seen as a prototype for Stephen Dedalus of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semi-autobiographical novel by James Joyce, first serialised in the magazine The Egoist from 1914 to 1915, and published first in book format in 1916 by B. W. Huebsch, New York. The first English edition was published by the Egoist Press in February 1917...
and Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
. The scorn the narrator has for his uncle is certainly consistent with the scorn Joyce showed for his father, and the lack of "good" parents is pertinent.
Later influence
Among later writers influenced by "ArabyAraby
Araby may refer to:* Araby , a historic home listed on the NRHP* "Araby" , from James Joyce's 1914 Dubliners* Araby , a country in the Warhammer Fantasy setting by Games Workshop* Araby, LA, USA...
" was John Updike, whose oft-anthologized short story, "A&P
A&P (story)
"A & P" is an ironic short story written by John Updike in 1961 in which the hero and first person narrator takes a stand for what is right and therefore has hope for a better future. M...
", is a contemporary (1960s American) reimagining of Joyce's tale of a young man, lately the wiser for his frustrating infatuation with a beautiful but inaccessible girl. Her allure has excited him into confusing his emergeent sexual impulses for those of honor and chivalry, and brought about disillusionment and a loss of innocence.
Media adaptations
- In 1999 a short film adaptation of "Araby" was produced and directed by Dennis Courtney.