Araby
Characters
The narrator's uncle
The narrator's aunt
The narrator
Mangan's Sister
- A young, imaginative boy who lives with his aunt and uncle.
1.He might have a drinking problem.
- Who allowed the narrator to go to the bazzar.
- The older sister of the narrator’s friend, Mangan.
The Priest
- The former tenant of the narrator’s house, who died in the drawing room.
Literary Significance
modern literary classics
- James Joyce contributes to develop new literary techniques beyond traditional literary forms and literary styles; for instance, he use the stream-of-consciousness technique and interior monologue in his fiction.
- Joyce's Araby refocuses on human psychology and its conscious flow against conventionally Edwardian literary realism in literary modernism.
- Joyce's Araby presents the imagery of disillusionment and loss of innocence and faith, which authentically relate to the movement of literary modernism and modern circumstances such as the sense of loss and disillusionment due to WW1 in British modern society.
Influence
- James Joyce influences the avant-garde such as Virginia Woolf to create experimentalist spirits in the form of novels, like using the technique of stream of consciousness and epiphany in modern fiction.
- Joyce's Araby influences offspring to revalue our idealization and disillusionment of human beings and our society in the modern period.
- Joyce's Araby is a form of bildungsroman in the genre, and influence modernist writers to use bildungsroman as a genre to discover human mentality and the complexity of consciousness in modern novels.
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- He has a crush on his friend Mangan's sister and becomes obsessed with her.
- The narrator has a powerful crush on her.
Mangan
1.The narrator's friend and the brother of the girl the narrator has a crush on.
Mrs. Mercer
- Mercer is a friend of the narrator's aunt and uncle.
Literary techniques
1.Symbolism
The story is rich in symbolism, with many objects and events representing larger ideas. For example, the bazaar represents the narrator's hopes and dreams for escape from his mundane life, while the "blind street" he lives on symbolizes his sense of being trapped and isolated.
2.Imagery
Joyce uses vivid and detailed imagery to create a sensory experience for the reader. For example, the opening paragraph describes the "fallen" houses and "dark" streets of the neighborhood, setting a tone of decay and despair.
4.Irony
The story is full of irony, particularly in the narrator's misguided pursuit of love and his eventual disillusionment. For example, he spends weeks planning to buy a gift for his crush at the bazaar, only to arrive too late and realize the futility of his efforts.
4.Foreshadowing
Throughout the story, Joyce uses subtle hints and foreshadowing to suggest the protagonist's eventual disappointment. For example, the mention of the "brown imperturbable faces" of the sellers at the bazaar suggests the unattainability of the narrator's dreams.
Plot
Exposition
The setting is in winter by the end of North Richmond Street and that community in Dublin, Ireland. The main character is the narrator, the boy who is smitten by a girl he saw. The boy lives with his uncle and aunt, as tenant in a house where a priest died.
Rising Action
The boy is at his house and he imagines a conversation with Magan's sister, the girl he has a crush on. He acts as if she is there with him. He asks his uncle to take him to the Araby bazaar. He wants to buy a gift for the girl because she dropped a hint.
falling action
The boy leaves the bazaar in South Dublin after not buying anything for the girl. "I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real. Then I turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar.
Conclusion
The boy is mad and feels defeated because he was not able to buy the girl a gift. He then decides not to do anything about his love and gave up on it. "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger."