Araby
The story of Araby is a perfectly planned route to the revelation of an epiphany. In Joyce's last line, "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger," the epiphany is realized. In the final line the meaning of the young boy's journey from love to despair and disappointment is revealed. These last few words play on the themes throughout the story (darkness, blindness, isolation, religion, disillusionment), and bring everything together as the epiphany the story is centered in is understood. The story opens with the themes of darkness and blindness. The description of North Richmond Street, a "blind," "cold...silent" street where the houses "gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces" overwhelms us with feelings of oppression and endangerment. Everything here seems to be dead or decaying in the "quiet" and "cold," "dark muddy lanes" and "dark dripping gardens." The boy's house has the same dead presence and lost past. This is a darkness that extends throughout the story. When he finally reaches the bazaar
There is also a theme of religious undertones in this story. The former tenet of the boy's house was a priest who had lived his last day in the back room of the house. Also, his love for the girl is a religious metaphor; she is to him both a saint to be worshiped and a woman to be desired. The boy transforms in his mind, through romantic and Christian symbolism, the girl he loves, into an enchanted, saintly princess. Other religious symbolisms can be found in the text as well. In the disgusting, dark, and drab reality the boy journeys through in the marketplace, and his life in general, "amid the curses of laborers," "jostled by drunken men and bargaining women," he carries his aunt's parcels as she shops, imagining not parcels, but a "chalice through a throng of foes." This sly slip in of a piece of religious ceremony is like the description the boy gives to the emptiness of the bazaar, "a silence like that which pervades a church after a service." , the place of "Eastern enchantment," it is dirty and disappointing. Two men are "counting money on a salver" and he listens "to the fall of the coins." A young
Some common words found in the essay are:
Richmond Street, , eastern enchantment, eyes burned, anguish anger, religious undertones story, darkness creature driven, vanity eyes burned, driven derided vanity, derided vanity eyes, boy gazing, vanity eyes, boy's house, religious undertones, burned anguish, female clerk, darkness blindness,
Approximate Word count = 758
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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