It is great that we're reading James Joyces's Araby since it illustrates perfectly how awful it is to think that every story must have some easily digestible message. There are so many things going on in this story that to squeeze it into a one statement summation would be tragic, not to mention difficult.
The description seems like what must be echos of Joyce's own memories of early 20th century Ireland. Lighting is huge in early memories, and the way he pays attention to it in the short story Araby is something. Almost like the way Alyosha Karamazov recalls the slanting rays of the setting sun in his beloved early memory of his mother.When the boys are playing in the street "light from the kitchen windows filled the areas". The way Mangan's sister is described and how she is lit accentuates her pale neck and purity. There also are undercurrents of sex (Mangan's sister's white border of her petticoat), money (Mrs. Mercer and the mentions of coins), and religion (the priest who died, and the garden of eden).
I like how Joyce thought commonplace occurrences, like a schoolboy crush, are what bring about epiphanies. First crushes can be exciting, and seem to be a good reason to be alive if not for anything else. For a brief shining moment not everything is as bland as the boy's surroundings. But when his quest to bring something back from the street bazaar to her is spoiled by something as unromantic as being too late, he seems to lose all idyllic romantic notions entirely.
No comments:
Post a Comment