Araby Notes (Joyce)

Blindness supports one of the major themes in "Araby." In this first sentence, "blind" has two meanings. Literally, it refers to a cul-de-sac or dead-end street. However, figuratively, Joyce refers to the condition of the boy's, and other's, relation to reality, a kind of short-sighted naivety.

Joyce was a fierce critic of the Roman Catholic Church, and this specific word choice here provides a supportive example of this position: This little phrase suggests that religion has imprisoned the boys, and they are temporarily set free at the end of each day.

In establishing the setting in this first paragraph, Joyce presents the street as a representation of the Irish soul, uninhabited and detached. He personifies the houses here, making them more conscious and arguably more alive than the residents.

The color brown is intended to reveal a dull, colorless life...such colors and words are used throughout to describe Dublin life, and then the people made dull because of this.

Joyce uses the house as a representation for all of Ireland. Since the previous tenant was a priest, who has since died, Joyce implies that the Church is also dead. Joyce hated Roman Catholicism, and the influences it had on him and others fuels one of his main themes in this short story as the young boy struggles to separate the secular from the sacred.

Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Abbot, written in 1820, presents the life of Mary Queen of Scots in a religious and romantic way. The central character, Roland Graeme, is a young man who becomes involved in adventure and romance, much like the narrator of "Araby," who goes on his own quest. Joyce's inclusion of this text represents the complexity and confusion of romantic, religious, and materialist love that the boy faces in "Araby."

The Devout Communicant could refer to one of three texts with the same name. However, the more likely text is the popular Catholic work written by Pacificus Baker, a Franciscan Friar, published in 1761 and noted for its pious language that perhaps influences how the boy talks about Mangan's sister (the boy is the devout youth approaching the sainted girl). The important take-away from this book's inclusion in this list of three is that it influences boy's language and perspective on life.

Francois-Jules Vidocq published The Memoirs of Vidocq in 1829. This popular 19th-century novel was about a Parisian Police Commissioner and thief who was able to conceal his own crimes. The book's inclusion here presents and supports the theme of deception in the story. The presence of these three novels further strengthen the deception, because readers can understand their purpose but the boy himself remains ignorant of their meaning and influence.

Joyce's inclusion of an apple tree is a reference to the Garden of Eden from the Bible. Since the story of the apple involves Adam and Eve falling from grace by eating forbidden fruit and having their "eyes opened," the inclusion of this allusion helps provide context and foreshadow the events later in "Araby." In particular, pay attention to how many times Joyce uses the word "fall," especially around the end of the story.

The rusty bicycle-pump has been hailed as one of the treasures in Joyce's work. The rust on the pump represents the passing of time: the comparison of the priest's garden to Eden as After the Fall reinforces Joyce's position that the time of the Church has passed. He also foreshadows the boy's confusion of religion and sex by positioning the phallic, rusty bicycle pump within the garden.

The frequent hypocrisy of religion is a familiar theme in Joyce's work. This description hides a disconcerting question that Joyce uses to point out the hypocrisy of religion: if the priest was so charitable, how could he have had so much money at the time of his death? While the narrator doesn't understand such hypocrisy, readers know that "all" suggests a lot of money, particularly when referring to donations to institutions, and that leaving one's possessions to family, such as the sister here, is not true charity

The boys' bodies glowing is an important image to contrast the dreary adjectives and descriptions Joyce puts into this paragraph. Toward the end of this passage, readers will notice that Joyce repeats the word "shadow" three times. This repetition, coupled with the other adjectives here, portray the people of Dublin as ghosts. However, since the boys "played till [their] bodies glowed," readers know that they are still alive; their youth and souls haven't yet been claimed by the dreariness of Dublin.

"running a gauntlet" is a medieval era phrase (a gauntlet originally is a knight's protective glove) but running a gauntlet was a form of punishment in which the punished must run between two lines of people who are hitting the person running. Running a gauntlet has since come to refer to going through any difficult period of life. The medieval language sets the reader up for seeing this story as a knightly quest (a hero's search for an important object).

By "the areas," Joyce means the places in front of many Dublin houses below the level of the sidewalk. Such spaces are also prevalent in the older brownstone buildings in New York City.

One reason for the choice of the name "Mangan" could be the Irish Romantic poet James Clarence Mangan, whose poetry Joyce admired. This reference would gesture to the history and tradition of female muses as divine inspiration for poets in medieval and Renaissance romantic poetry. This would be fitting, as romantic tropes and images appear throughout "Araby."

The inclusion of "railings" here is important because Joyce could count on his readers making the connection with the altar rails in Catholic churches. These rails separate the congregation from the altar and serve as locations for the faithful to kneel, pray, and take communion. By standing by these rails to watch Mangan's sister, the boy conflates her with the Virgin Mary as an object of religious veneration. However, he doesn't understand or recognize—perhaps due to repressive, religious influences—his sexual attraction to her. This confusion persists and is elaborated on in more detail.

The choice of "Mangan" for the girl's last name also serves another interesting purpose. In Gaelic, the family name "Mangan" refers to someone with an abundant amount of hair on their head. English readers may see a connection between the original Gaelic "mong," which means "hair," and the word "mane."

The color brown returns to describe the figure of Mangan's sister. This association informs us that she's older than the boys, and consequently the drab lifelessness of Dublin has already started to affect her.

A "litany" is a resonant or repetitive chant. Joyce uses this word to invoke its religious connotations, as a "litany" is also a specific type of prayer in a church service. By doing so, he connects religion with consumerism and materialist culture. This word choice parallels the narrator's own inability to separate religion from secular activities and desires.

A "come-all-you" was a type of street song that dealt with current events and popular heroes. These songs were also sung in pubs and other popular gathering places. Such songs about hero knights pulls readers back to the hero's quest storyline

Joyce combines the story's themes of romantic, religious, and materialist love in this paragraph through a routine shopping trip with the boy's aunt. Notice how the boy imagines this mundane task to be more like a sacred adventure, much like a knight on a medieval quest for the Holy Grail (the "chalice" he mentions).

The narrator's feelings of love for Mangan's sister interrupt his daily activities, many of which include religious rituals. Joyce suggests that religion tries to suppress and ultimately confuses the boy's romantic and sexual feelings. As seen with the earlier comparison of Mangan's sister to the Virgin Mary, the boy's struggle to separate his secular emotions from his religious upbringing continues as a pervasive theme in "Araby."

Notice how the boy personifies his senses by saying that they are the ones who have the desire instead of him. This strategy gives readers the impression that the boy is trying to separate his mind from his body in order to understand his confusion. The pressing of his palms together puts him in a position of prayer. Alone in the house (a classic masturbatory situation), the boy nearly engages in sexual activity. Instead, he presses his hands together and murmurs like he's in church. The culmination of his activity shows how the boy's religious upbringing has so suppressed his sexual feelings, with the religious completely obscuring the sexual in his mind and body.

The Araby bazaar was a highly anticipated, annual event in Dublin in the 19th century that introduced foreign concepts such as music, literature, styles, and goods. Joyce's bazaar, Araby, was called "A Grand Oriental Fete: Araby in Dublin" and was held in May, 1894, to benefit a local hospital. Show more

Joyce builds on the theme of religion in the story here by showing how the girl's religious retreat takes precedence over her desire to enjoy the bazaar. The twirling of her silver bracelets also hints at a kind of nervous, and possibly sexual, energy that her religious obligations have also suppressed. In Roman Catholicism and other religious or spiritual organizations, a "retreat" refers to location of privacy for a period of seclusion that allows the participants time to pray, meditate, receive advice, and discover ways to improve their moral lives.

The details in this section are reminiscent of the biblical scene during the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, where the Roman soldiers are throwing dice over the possession of Christ's clothes. (see the sentence just before the highlighted portion) This image of the crucifixion is further supported by the spike (such as those in Christ's hands and feet) that Mangan's sister is holding and the earlier comparison of her to the Virgin Mary.

As mentioned earlier with the romantic notions of the bazaar, this statement represents the foundation of story's climax. The boy makes a vow to the girl, which strongly suggests the quest of a knight. The theme of consumerism and materialism occurs again in this line. The narrator's promise to Mangan's sister suggests that he believes expressions of love can be contained in objects and traded like commodities.

The word choice here emphasizes the boy's romantic fascination with Araby (and the enchanting idea of the Middle East). His romantic quest has consumed his reality and hindered his ability to operate on a day-to-day basis. However, there is also a hint of a new understanding on the boy's part; he appears critical of his own past, as demonstrated by his recognition of his "innumerable follies."

The Freemasons are an international order that was established on the principles of mutual help and friendship. The aunt's surprise and apprehension is based on Freemasonry's position as primarily a Protestant organization. Since Ireland is predominantly Roman Catholic, such organizations would be feared and mistrusted at this time and place

The color brown appears for the third time in the story when the boy imagines seeing Mangan's sister. Notice how his image of her is an echo of the earlier scenes, in which she is depicted religiously (the lamplight at the curved neck) and sexually (the border below the dress)

Again, the connection between the material commercial world (pawnbroking)and the religious world9the pious purpose she has in collecting stamps

Instead of saying that the uncle is drunk, Joyce lets the reader figure this out along with the boy. This technique also serves another purpose: it shows how the boy has started to correctly interpret signs, demonstrating some growth on his part. This development foreshadows his final interpretation of his trip to Araby.

Many of Joyce's readers would understand his inclusion of Caroline Norton's poem and its relationship to "Araby." In the poem the Arab boy sells his beloved horse for money. However, in the end he regrets this decision and returns the gold to get his horse back. Such a reference hits on the boy's confusion between materialist and romantic love in "Araby."

Florins are a form of currency that originated in the city of Florence during the Renaissance. The coins had a likeness of St. John the Baptist on one side and one of the Virgin Mary on the other. This little fact not only subtly supports the confusion between the material and the romantic in the story, but florins from the late 19th century also depicted the British Queen Victoria on one side with a phrase on the other: "by the grace of God, defender of the faith." Since Ireland was still under British rule, this subtly reminds readers of colonialism, because the young Irish-Catholic boy has to carry around a coin that represents the authority of the Queen and the British (and Protestant) Church of England.

Notice how in this paragraph Joyce uses certain words to indicate the boy's making a special journey: "twinkling," "special," and "magical." This convey a sense of magic about the boy's quest and builds up our expectations as he arrives at the bazaar.

There are a few words in this paragraph that provide clues, but Joyce still uses a rather specific simile to ensure that readers make the connection between the Araby bazaar and a church. However, the quiet and the dark makes the scene more closely resemble a church after its service has finished.

Since Joyce has made the comparison between Araby and a church explicit, then this line provides a very stark image of how money and religion are mixed in this place: The two men counting money inside a church likely alludes to the story of Jesus Christ in Matthew 21:12-13 in which he throws the money changers out of the temple, and a "salver" refers to the plate on which a wine cup sits for communion in church.

Throughout Europe, such cafés typically had singers, dancers, and other entertainers perform for patrons. The food and entertainment were not of very high quality, so the presence of this café at Araby suggests that the bazaar not the grand wonder that the boy has made it out to be.

This short scene represents the turning point of the story as the boy's situation worsens. Joyce's inclusion of English accents indicates that this Irish boy is in unfriendly territory because the British are running the bazaar. The short conversation they have is so ordinary as to be vulgar, and the boy begins to realize that his quest was not the sacred journey he thought it was.

Disillusioned by what he sees at the bazaar, the boy finally sees himself as readers have seen him for much of the story. He realizes his own vanity and foolishness, his unprofitable use of time, the futility of life in Dublin, that Mangan's sister likely has no interest in him, and that there is no magical "Araby" in Ireland.

The word "fall" makes another appearance in this passage, again supporting the notion that like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the boy is about to experience his own "fall" from innocence.

Joyce termed this type of final scene as an epiphany in that it provides a moment of sudden revelation or insight even in an apparently ordinary situation or conversation. Joyce's epiphany shows how the boy acquires an intuitive grasp of reality: he is defeated; he failed his quest to buy a gift, but most of all, his self-deception and ego defeated him by making him believe that his quest was sacred. This epiphany represents the boy's fall from innocence and his change into an adolescent dealing with the harsh realities of life.