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SHORT STORIES DUBLINERS by James Joyce - Coggle Diagram

- - - - The sister often comes to the front of their house to call the brother, a moment that the narrator enjoys a lot.
        -He places himself in the front room of his house so he can see her leave her house, and then he rushes out to walk behind her quietly until finally passing her. The narrator and Mangan’s sister talk little, but she is always in his thoughts.
        
        By the time he actually speaks more to her and one morning, Mangan’s sister asks the narrator if he plans to go to Araby, a Dublin bazaar and him
        forgotting what he answered yes or no, at the end 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.
        -This brief meeting launches the narrator into a period of tension in anticipation of the bazaar. He cannot focus in school. He finds the lessons tedious, and they distract him from thinking about Mangan’s sister.
        -On the morning of the bazaar the narrator reminds his uncle that he plans to attend the event so that the uncle will return home early and provide to give him some money.
        But his uncle arrives so late from work and equivocates so much that he almost keeps the narrator from being able to go, nonetheless he go out of the house, 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 and most of the stalls are closed. The only sound is "the fall of the coins" of some men that count their money.
        
        He approaches one stall that is still open, but buys nothing, feeling unwanted by the woman watching over the goods. With no purchase for Mangan’s sister, the narrator stands angrily in the deserted bazaar as the lights go out.
        
        He seems to interpret his arrival at the bazaar as it turns into darkness as a sign that his relationship with Mangan’s sister will also remain just a wishful idea.
        
        The story presents this frustration as universal: the narrator is nameless, the girl is always “Mangan’s sister” as though she is any girl next door, and the story closes with the narrator angry and alone.
        
        The narrator’s change of heart concludes the story on a moment not very positive.
        -Instead of reaffirming his love or realizing that he does not need gifts to express his feelings for Mangan’s sister, the narrator simply gives up.
- - - - One day Old Cotter, a family friend, has come to the house to share the news that Father Flynn is dead and knowing that everyone waits for his reaction, the boy remains quiet.
        -At that moment a conversation ensues between the uncle and Old Cotter, and the uncle notes the high hopes Father Flynn had for the boy. He hints that Father Flynn planned to prepare the boy for the priesthood and remarks on the friendship between them. Old Cotter, however, thinks of Father Flynn as a “peculiar case” and insists that young boys should play with people their own age.
        
        It is revealed that the priest had died after an illness, and the narrator and his aunt visit the priest's home, where they are met by the priest's sisters, Eliza and Fannie.
        -The two sisters talked about Flynn’s odd behavior, which started with dropping a chalice during Mass. When one night Father O’Rourke and another priest found Father Flynn shut in a confessional box, laughing to himself, they finally realized he was sick.
        
        -In this story strange and puzzling events occur that remain unexplained.
        As we saw the man suffers from paralyzing strokes and dies, but his deterioration, epitomized by his laughing frenzy in a confessional box, also hints that he was mentally unstable. The reader never learns exactly what was wrong with him. Similarly, Father Flynn and the young narrator had a relationship that Old Cotter thinks was unhealthy, but that the narrator paints as spiritual when he recounts the discussions he and Father Flynn had about Church rituals. However, the narrator also has strange dreams about Father Flynn and admits to feeling uncomfortable around him.
        -Joyce presents just enough information so that the reader suspects Father Flynn is a malevolent figure, but never enough so that the reader knows the full story.
        
        The inability of the narrator and his aunt to eat and speak during their visit to the sisters recalls the sense of "paralysis" that the narrator connects to the dying Father Flynn in the story’s opening paragraph.
      - The narrator thinks of the word "paralysis" when looking at Father Flynn’s window and says the word sounds strange.