Blog 3 option 1:
The setting in “Araby,” by James
Joyce, is one of the elements that helps the reader understand the
narrator's enduring mood of gloominess and obsessive tendencies.
While most kids had the chance to grow up on a street where other
kids lived and the people were friendly, less fortunate kids like the
narrator of this story grew up on a lifeless street with very little
interaction with other people.
The underlying dysthymic feeling
created by the setting is reinforced in a number of bitterquotes by
the narrator. He mentions at one point how he stared at the clock.
Just before that, he said, “The air was pitilessly raw and my heart
misgave me,” only because he could not see his crush in the way he
always got the chance to once a day. The narrator's spying denotes
his fear of social interaction. He is desperate for a silver lining,
and works hard to get his daily glimpse at his version of hope.
Hypocrisy has a way of misleading a
child into believing something inaccurate. When the narrator's uncle
finally shows up for dinner, he claims, “All work and no play makes
Jack a dull boy.” But at the same time, the narrator probably sees
how his uncle does not recognize his pain, and what could have caused
it. The narrator at one point mentions his father talking to
himself. At another point towards the end, the narrator apparently
feels a bit excluded due to the way the lady at the bazaar talked to
him impatiently, like he was interrupting her conversation with her
friends.
The narrator's suffering in this story
is evident by a disturbing level of detail used to describe his
feelings at such a young age of his life. He personifies the houses
as having faces that did not change, just like the life inside them.
The neighbors did not seem to have seen much of each-other. This is
a feeling that happens to be reinforced by the way he describes his
attempts to talk to his secret love. This shows us youth's capacity
for sensitivity, and it is doubtful that he would have had the
ability to express his feelings to the extent that he was able at the
age of thirty-two by writing this story.
I really like the way that you analyzed this story. I agree with you about the gloominess and obsessive tendencies that this boy has. He has no interaction with anyone and can see why he has this obsessive crush for Mangan's sister. The setting is very important in this story because it gives the reader such a visual that builds and leads to the climax. If the narrator wouldn't have given detailed descriptions of the setting and how he felt we would have never known how crazy in love with Mangan's sister he was. For example the narrator states, "Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlor watching her door." (246) and another good one, "What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after the evening!" (247).
ReplyDeleteThe way you analyzed the story made it easier for me to understand. I had a hard time understanding “Araby” or even the whole meaning of the story. Everything you described makes a lot more sense now. The setting was described as being gloomy and upsetting and that made me understand more of how the character is feeling. To me the boy was a depressed and obsessive individual. He is in love with someone who he can’t see and it gets to where is obsessive and even waits for her outside. The setting of the story mad me understand the boys feelings through descriptions of surrounding objects without telling me how he was feeling.
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