This is another great piece of fiction that I also read back in High School. I really enjoy short stories and I think next to poetry it is my favorite kind of literature. I think Araby symbolizes so many different themes such as young love, vanity, desire, and simply the emotion of "want".
The young boy in the poem is a student at a Catholic Boys School and has a infatuation with Mangen's sister and wishes to change his dull life into something with excitement. He follows her around every day after school and describes her as an "image" that accompanies him "even in places the most hostile to romance".
The most interesting thing about their relationship however is that even though he has a romantic passion for Mangan's sister, he "had never spoken to her". This is the symbol of desire and young love. Basically this young man is entangled in the passion of romance and even her name is "a summons to all my foolish blood" (even he himself calls him a foolish youth). The theme of foolish young love is also shown in this young man when he doesn't even want to deal with the "innumerable follies" of waking and sleeping. I think this is ridiculous that one man can be so obsessed with a woman that he doesn't even want to sleep.
Ultimately though, his desires are crushed when he travels to Araby to buy his love a gift from the bazaar. This trip to the bazaar is a symbol of the relationship ship between him and Mangan's sister. He arrives the bazaar right before it closes and is unable to buy anything (not out of cost, but because of the saleswoman and how she is acting with the two men in the shop). The young man leaves the shop and is left alone in the dark of the closing bazaar, cursing himself for thinking things in his life would be different.
I love this short story and I think Joyce truly captures the essence of youth and a failed love. Even though I feel that the reader can see there never really was any hope for this young love's romance, the reader feels pity and empathy towards this young man, because we all know how it feels to lose a love that you never had.
Robert,
ReplyDeleteMy problem with this story is the assumption that the trip to Araby is a failure. Though he is frustrated at the end of the short story, he doesn't KNOW that his crush won't be blown away by the sweetest of his quest - it's the thought that counts after all! - and give him a chance. Even if she wasn't interested in him before, maybe his willingness to do something for her would change her mind.
Katie Rose