ASSIGNMENT-2-James-Joyce-2.

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Ainhoacuario

Introducción a la Literatura Inglesa del Siglo XX: Poesía, Teatro

y Novela
1º Grado en Estudios Ingleses

Facultad de Humanidades
Universidad de Almería

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No se permite la explotación económica ni la transformación de esta obra. Queda permitida la impresión en su totalidad.

INTRODUCCIÓN A LA LITERATURA INGLESA DEL SIGLO
XX
STUDENT’S NAME:
GROUP
Title
Author
Type of work
& chapter, section (if any)
Date of publication
Theme. Can you state it in
a single sentence?
Plot (a few lines)
(Please describe the way
the events are organized)
Narrator
(What effect does the
narrator’s point of view
have on your
understanding of the
story?)
Characters
(Main character,
antagonist, secondary
characters, etc.)
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No se permite la explotación económica ni la transformación de esta obra. Queda permitida la impresión en su totalidad.
Ainhoa Aguilera Zhuperina
GT 1
Dubliners
James Joyce
Analysis of Chapter: Araby, a short story of Joyce’s
collection “Dubliners”.
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Published in 1914.
The loss of innocence and the problem of making sense
of the feelings of first love that brings the protagonist to
maturity and real-world realisation.
A young and introverted boy develops a crush on his
neighbour’s sister and he decides to go to a bazaar called
Araby to buy her a present, but this causes enormous
frustration due to the fact that he does not have enough
money and at the same time the revelation that marks
the end of childhood.
This story follows a “tri-partite” structure.
It begins with the evocation of a child experience of a
dingy environment, followed by his romantic attachment
to a girl and ending with the visit to the Araby bazaar,
when the paralysis and epiphany appear.
The narrator (first person narrator) is an individualistic
voice, because narrator and protagonist are both the
same character.
Although he is our voice through the story, and the other
characters (with the notable exception of the girl), this
causes that the reader never really knows how the
protagonist is feeling at the time when the story takes
place.
The main character of this short story is the protagonist,
who is the narrator, a young boy.

Setting (time and
location). How important
are these elements in the
story?
Mood
(How can you get it from
the text? (e.g. setting,
tone, diction, etc.). Please
provide evidence from the
text).
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The secondary characters are the narrator’s uncle and
Mangan’s sister, because their actions are decisive for
the main character.
However, Mangan’s sister has an antagonistic role, due
to the fact that her function is to prevent the protagonist
from achieving his objective within the plot.
The tertiary characters are Mangan (the neighbour), the
No se permite la explotación económica ni la transformación de esta obra. Queda permitida la impresión en su totalidad.
narrator’s aunt and the priest, because they appear in the
story sporadically and their actions are not relevant to
the development of the story.
Rather, the priest appears in a symbolic way.
The setting of “Araby” is Dublin, capital city of Ireland
and hometown of James Joyce, in late 19th-century and
so much of the vocabulary used reflects that time period.
Additionally, it includes the influence of the Catholic
and Protestant religious traditions, many vocabulary
items with direct or indirect religious meanings and
connotations are used.
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The unnamed narrator lives in a place called North
Richmond Street, which is described as “blind.”
We get a sense of Joyce is referring to as blindness in his
description of this respectable but bland part of town,
emphasising the literal limits of the street and the
figurative limitations of the street.
It reinforces the theme and the characters by using
imagery of light and darkness.
James Joyce’s purpose in writing “Araby” was to
emphasise the difference between the world the Church
or society in general creates, and the real world. It also
establish the mood of the story.
The emotional atmosphere expressed by the author is a
bleak one.
At the start of the story, the mood is lively and joyful,
with images and descriptions of love and beauty in the
form of Mangan’s sister.
But later, when he waits the return of his uncle, a mood
of anticipation and worry is conveyed.
When the boy’s uncle finally arrives, the boy departs for
the bazaar and the mood takes a turn for the pessimistic.
There is a clear contrast between the underlying themes
of depression and the brighter thoughts.
si lees esto me debes un besito

Style
(How would you describe
the style of the writing?
(e.g. conversational,
formal, familiar,
unfamiliar, simple, ornate,
etc.).
Literary devices
(Which literary devices
can you find in the story?
Please provide examples
from the text).
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When the narrator experiences his epiphany, the lector is
left with darkness and realisation that he experiences,
and the mood ends as dark and depressive.
The tone that “Araby” features is depressed and gloomy.
The way the author uses his descriptions and characters
enhances the sombreness of the stories.
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For example: “the street being blind”, “was a quiet
street”, “an uninhabited house”, “conscious of event
lives”, “gazed at one another with brown imperturbable
faces”.
However, there are overtones of dialogue that become
hopeful and almost cheerful.
As the story progresses, the main plot takes a turn to the
brighter side upon the author’s description of the boy’s
infatuation with his friend’s sister.
For example: “Her image accompanied me even in
places the most hostile to romance”.
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Later on though, when the boy reaches the bazaar as it is
shutting down, the tone takes a turn for the morose and
leads the reader to the boy’s epiphany and subsequent
disillusionment.
And it ends on a somber note, when the narrator stands
in the dark bazaar.
This short story flow into a very easy narrative method,
its narrative technique closely follows the first person
narrations, where the author himself becomes his story
es own narrator.
All the lines arranged in the story give the impression
that the author is taking as gradually into a world of
comparison. And that comparison brings into our mind
the ideal and the mundane, the real world and the dream
world.
“Araby” is a graceful story which employs simple
expressions, lines without complexity and absence of
tough phrases and sentences.
In this story we can find some literary devices:
-Alliteration: “the back doors of the dark dripping
gardens…”
-Irony to highlight the naïveté of the young narrator:
si lees esto me debes un besito

Where is the particular
point of “epiphany” in this
chapter? Please describe
it.
Can you relate the story to
our present time? How?
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“I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpense in
No se permite la explotación económica ni la transformación de esta obra. Queda permitida la impresión en su totalidad.
my pocket”.
-Metaphor: “falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. It
fell…”
-Personification: “conscious of decent lives within
them…”
-Simile: “like fingers running upon the wires…”
-The tone that help give “Araby” an at-times gloomy,
at-times naively hopeful tone: “we played till our bodies
glowed”, “had grown sombre…”.
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-Vocabulary: “the white border of a petticoat…”, “the
soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side…”, “the
shrill litanies of shop-boys…”.
The epiphany in “Araby” takes place at the end of the
story when the narrator is at the bazaar and listens to a
conversation between a girl working at the bazaar and
two guys.
After listening to this conversation, the narrator realises
the bazaar (which he thought would be so exciting), is
really a commercialised place to buy things.
He is conscious that the bazaar is not the place of
romance and colour that he had originally thought it
was.
As a result, the boy becomes throughly disillusioned and
humiliated, because he no longer sees the world has a
nice place, he sees the world as it is.
This story could be applied to today’s world perfectly
because the theme of platonic love, the dysfunctional
family, humiliation and maturity are natural aspects of a
person.
Every child always has the illusion of first love, that
impossible love that leaves you breathless, with infinite
nervousness. That love for whom you are willing to do
anything and yet you know it is impossible.
For example, as in this story, any child can go to a shop
with the intention of buying something to surprise his or
her platonic love. And later, realise that it is not worth it,
and become disappointed and humiliated.