Epiphany And Paralysis In Araby By James Joyce

An epiphany is a sudden realization that changes everything for the main character. This sudden sense of clarity can be either good or bad. In James Joyce’s story, Araby, it is bad. The main character set out to impress his friend’s sister in order to win her heart. The boy, about 8 years old and partially blind, does not even know the name of the friend’s sister, leading the readers to address her as Mangan’s sister. Their encounters consist of the boy excessively stalking her and spying on her every move until finally walking by her without saying a word. His love for her is as juvenile as his age seeing that he cannot even talk to her and when he does it’s just awkward mumbling because he cannot think straight. He promises to buy her

Two men were flirting with a women and counting money which in turn ruined his thought of "Eastern enchantment." After seeing the women shamelessly flirt with the men, he realized that he allowed his feelings for Mangan's sister to get carried away with. He was angry at himself for acting like a fool. "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger." (Joyce 392). The last line says a lot about the story and the complexity of his feelings. However, the fact that he realized he was acting foolishly, showed that he was maturing from an innocent young child, into a man( "Sample Essays Analyzing James Joyce's Short Story-Araby").

I will be writing my essay on innocence and experience to show how it relates to “Araby” by James Joyce. While reading the story, and what I’ve understood is that it’s a very depressing story about a young boy that is between 12 to 17 years of age who had his first experience in feeling loved and perhaps having a life alone. Later on in the story towards the end the experience will be very sad as we talk about it.

James Joyce’s “Araby” is a short story narrated by an adolescent boy who falls in love with a nameless girl on North Richmond Street. Every day this boy watches her “brown figure,” which is “always in [his] eyes,” and chases after it (27). According to the boy, “lher image accompanie[s] [him] even in places the most hostile to romance” (27). He thinks of her bodily figure often, invokes her name “in strange prayers and praises”, and emits “flood[like]” tears at the mere thought of her (27). The boy exhibits all this emotion, despite the fact that he “had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words"(27). Therefore, when he finally has a conversation with her, about a Dublin bazaar called Araby, it causes him to become disoriented. The boy fails to concentrate at his Christian Brother School and at home, because Mangan’s sister finally talks to him. The boy, determined to get something for his lover at the bazaar she cannot attend, asks his uncle for money. However, to his distress, his uncle forgets and the boy is unable to attend the bazaar until “it [is] ten minutes to ten” (31). This delay and the long journey by train causes the boy to become irritated. His irritation soon turns to anger as he enters the bazaar only to find it practically empty except for two men with “English accents” and a female engaged in a conversation (32). At this point, the boy loses interest in buying anything at the bazaar for his lover and decides to feign interest to appease the

The stories of James Joyce’s “Araby” and John Updike’s “A&P” share identical literary traits from each character which are the protagonist. The main point of the two is that they revolve around a young male who is pressured by his conscience to untangle the difference between the harsh reality and the fantasies of romance that play in his head. The young man does indeed recognize the difference is what turns him in the direction of an emotional catastrophe.

In his short story "Araby", James Joyce portrays a character who strives to achieve a goal and who comes to an epiphany through his failure to accomplish that goal. Written in the first person, "Araby" is about a man recalling an event from his childhood. The narrator's desire to be with the sister of his friend Mangan, leads him on a quest to bring back a gift from the carnival for the girl. It is the quest, the desire to be a knight in shining armor, that sends the narrator to the carnival and it's what he experienced and sees at the carnival that brings him to the realization that some dreams are just not attainable.

            Every morning before school the boy lies on the floor in thefront parlor peeking out through a crack in the blind of the door,watching and waiting for the girl next door to emerge from her houseand walk to school. He is shy and still boyish. He follows her, walkssilently past, not daring to speak, overcome with a confused sense ofsensual desire and religious adoration. In his mind she is both a saintto be worshipped and a woman to be desired. His eyes are "often fullof tears," and one evening he goes to the back room where the priesthad died. Clasping the palms of his hands together, he murmurs, "0love! 0 love!" in a prayer not to God, but to the concept of love andperhaps even to the girl, his love. Walking with his aunt to shop onSaturday evenings he imagines that the girl's image accompanies him,and that he protects her in "places the most hostile to romance." Inthe mixed symbolism of the Christian and the Romantic or Orientalmyths Joyce reveals the epiphany in the story: "These noises con-verged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore mychalice safely through a throng of foes." He is

I chose to to analyze the two short stories John Updike’s “A&P”, and James Joyce’s “Araby.” In these short stories I found a glimps of two young fellows to find their journey from teenage towards manhood. As we see in the story of “A & P” Sammy's view of life changes at the end of the story and I could say the same about the character of “Araby”.

In the opening paragraphs of James Joyce's short story, "Araby," the setting takes center stage to the narrator. Joyce tends carefully to the exquisite detail of personifying his setting, so that the narrator's emotions may be enhanced. To create a genuine sense of mood, and reality, Joyce uses many techniques such as first person narration, style of prose, imagery, and most of all setting. The setting of a short story is vital to the development of character.

An epiphany is the sudden realization or manifestation of understanding, and in the "Story of an Hour," by Kate Chopin, a woman experienced an epiphany that ultimately had tragic results. The tragedy was foreshadowed in the first line when the narrator informed the reader of Mrs. Mallard's heart trouble and the problems it could bring when informing her of her husband's death. But instead of being the cause of tremendous sorrow, the death of her husband brought about a sudden realization of the freedom she would now have because she is no longer married and under the control of her husband. But Mrs. Mallard's epiphany, her realization of the freedom she'll now possess, became the cause of her tragedy. Just as she was beginning to enjoy the fruits of her epiphany, her heart trouble, which many believed would cause her trouble when the news of her husband's death reached her, actually caused her trouble when she suffered a heart attack brought on by joy.

In her story, "Araby," James Joyce concentrates on character rather than on plot to reveal the ironies inherent in self-deception. On one level "Araby" is a story of initiation, of a boy’s quest for the ideal. The quest ends in failure but results in an inner awareness and a first step into manhood. On another level the story consists of a grown man's remembered experience, for the story is told in retrospect by a man who looks back to a particular moment of intense meaning and insight. As such, the boy's experience is not restricted to youth's encounter with first love. Rather, it is a portrayal of a continuing problem all through life: the incompatibility of the ideal, of the dream

James Joyce’s short stories “Araby” and “The Dead” both depict self-discovery as being defined by moments of epiphany. Both portray characters who experience similar emotions and who, at the ends of the stories, confront similarly harsh realities of self-discovery. In each of these stories, Joyce builds up to the moment of epiphany through a careful structure of events and emotions that leads both protagonists to a redefining moment of self-discovery.

Expectations and reality consistently oppose one another for numerous situations in one’s lifetime. Humans tend to desire something and act to obtain it. Although, what is expected may not always occur thus the result is mostly disappointment but, a lesson is usually learnt. This is explicitly presented in the short story “Araby”, by James Joyce, which is a short story released in 1914 as a collection comprised of 15 stories named Dubliners. Through the first-person point of view of a boy, the story emphasizes a prime example of how reality does not agree with expectations. This unnamed boy transitions from a playful individual to a person in love with the sister of his closest friend.

“Araby,” is a story of emotional passion carefully articulated by the author, James Joyce, to mark the end of childhood and the start of adolescence. It is told from the perspective of a young boy who is filled with lust for his friend, Mangan’s, sister. He lives in a cheerless town on a street hosting simply complacent families who own brown faced houses that stare vacantly into one another. The boy temporarily detaches himself from this gloomy atmosphere and dwells on the keeper of his affection. Only when he journeys to a festival titled Araby, does he realize that his attempt at winning the heart of Mangan’s sister has been done in an act of vanity. Joyce takes advantage of literary elements such as diction and imagery to convey an at times dreary and foolishly optimistic tone.

James Joyce’s short story Araby delves into the life of a young adolescent who lives on North Richmond Street in Dublin, Ireland. Narrated in the boys’ perspective, he recounts memories of playing with friends and of the priest who died in the house before his family moved in. With unrestrained enthusiasm, the boy expresses a confused infatuation with the sister of his friend Mangan. She constantly roams his thoughts and fantasies although he only ever catches glimpses of her. One evening she speaks to him, confiding that she is unable to visit Araby, a bazaar. Stunned by the sudden conversation, the boy promises he will go and bring her back a small memento. In anticipation, the boy launches into a period of restless waiting and distraction