J a m e s J o y c e A r a b y

 Araby is just one of many short stories one can find in James Joyce’s famous book called Dubliners. The book itself is a collection of fifteen short stories concerning Dublin and its citizens. The stories were written at the time when Irish nationalism was at its peak, and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; consequently, they deal with the Irish, especially those in Dublin area, from birth to death.

Particularly, in Araby more than anywhere in the collection several different micro-cosmos are intermingling. The story demonstrates could be divided in three parts: adolescence, maturity, and public life in Dublin at that time. This could all be seen if one was to read the whole collection, which is approximately when they would realize that as the stories progress, the city, that is to say Dublin, has grown to destroy a young boy's life and hopes, thus creating the person that he is as a narrator.

In the story, however, it is a mature person, not the naive young boy who is the protagonist. This mature man remembers North Richmond Street "being blind", dark place, where nothing particularly good used to happen in those times; it was a street that could easily be called a representative of Dublin itself in the period the author lived there. The mature man remembers his early attempts to escape the "short days of winter", "where night falls early" and streetlights are but "feeble lanterns" failing miserably to light the somberness of the "dark muddy lanes". In other words, the man remembers himself as a boy escaping into the world of fantasy, which was probably the most painless way for a young boy to survive in such a 'silent' and 'dark' city. This young boy, is completely mystified by this girl, he hides in the shadows and observes her secretly: "Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door", but does not speak to her probably because he is afraid of being rejected.

This girl is the only one who could lift him out of this 'silence' and 'darkness': "Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance". The boy sees the bazaar at Araby as an opportunity to win her over, as a way to light the candle in her eyes; He fantasizes about bringing her a promised gift from the bazaar will capture her heart. He has promised her a gift and he anguishes over his uncle’s late return home and his forgetfulness. Nevertheless, he is undeterred and catches an empty train to reality - he had his epiphany, which is when he realized that Araby is just as North Richmond Street, empty and dark with few people. The young lady at the booth ignores him while she flirts with other men. When she finally approaches, he freezes in stare and the woman turns and walks away. This is where he had the epiphany, that is to say, where he realizes the opportunity of winning his friends sister through gift has slipped away.

On the other hand, the antagonist is Dublin itself, with its darkness and hopelessness and the way it influences its citizens. This kind of reality had a major impact on a naive boy, who is writing about it even in his mature days; it made a great influence on many other citizens and every single one of them will always carry the experiences of such life in their eternal memories. In such conditions, our protagonist could only look forward to buying something for the girl he loves, and in the end he does not achieve even that: it is helpless. In the end, anguish burns in his eyes as the cold grip of reality takes hold of him as he fumbles with the coins in his pocket: "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger".

To sum up, the story is about Dublin and its society, as well as its influence on the citizens. Nevertheless, it also shows 'a story within a story', an anecdote in a boy’s early life, which only reasserts the main plot. As interesting as it may seem, however, it cannot be fully understood without the context, which is why reading the whole book is highly recommendable.

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