Фильо Ксения, а3н

The text under analysis is entitled “Araby” which was published in James Joyce’s 1914 collection “Dubliners”, the series of stories telling about the Irish nation. James Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, short story writer, and poet. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde and is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the 20th century.

According to the Oxford Dictionary (2016, p. 13) “Araby” is “an archaic term for Arabia”. The word obviously suggests land, place or people considered exotic and mysterious by Europeans. Anything that cannot be reached or seen becomes an ideal and maybe the place is not that much of an attraction in reality, but as long as it is untouched – it is ideal.

The whole story is imbued with symbolism and the first reference is hidden in the “North Richmond Street” from which the story begins. We can say that this is a proper name and that the author emphasizes this name for a reason. If we divide the word Richmond into two parts, we get “rich” and “mond”. The second part “mond” is similar to the French word “la monde” meaning “the world”. Thus, the first phrase can be deciphered as “the Northern rich world”, which is a straight reference to Ireland. By means of aposiopesis, the author adds that “North Richmond Street” is a “blind” street and that means its idyllic ignorance of the wider world. In addition “blind” is repeated in the text more than once and we can see this word in the next sentence. Personalizing Ireland, Joyce tries to convey to the reader that this country is removed from the rest of the world and it “gazes” at its neighbors, – England, Wales and Scotland, – which unity creates a completely different world living “decent lives”. On this basis the setting of the story is an erased metaphor. Moreover, as the opening paragraph has prepared us for an allegory, the dead priest in the next one carries several messages. James Joyce, who hated Roman Catholicism, implies that the Church, which is represented by the priest, is dead. The Church as “the former tenant of our house” is another metaphor for Ireland.

Reading further, the attentive reader can notice that everything in the story is “colored” in sepia: “brown imperturbable faces”, “its leaves were yellow”, “rusty bicycle-pump”, “brown figure” etc. These descriptions create the first seme of time. But things and people being represented in brown colors do not cause a feeling of warmth, but rather evoke sadness and melancholy. But besides of the seme “time” we can find the semantics of light and darkness.

With the development of the plot the reader dips into the life of the narrator, who turns out to be a twelve-year-old boy who lives on North Richmond Street. The boy describes his surroundings in dark colors, but then the Light attends his life. Before the appearance of the Light, we see an alliteration of the fricative sound [w], which is used by the author to convey that the Wonder is about to appear: “ w e w aited to see w hether she w ould remain or go... ". The Light appears in the image of Mangan’s unnamed sister. Her brown figure stands on the lightened railings and the main character looks at her from the darkness of the street. However, the narrator sees her not only as an unattainable light; he notices how her dress swings as she moves her body, and how the soft rope of her hair tosses from side to side. And here we can compare Mangan’s sister with Arabia: The girl becomes as outlandish and exotic to the boy’s mind as Arabia to the Europeans, which is mentioned earlier.

The image of the unattainable and alluring ideal haunts the main character day and night, but when the girl starts a conversation with him, he is confused. Despite her coquetry, we can notice the alliteration of the sound [r] in her actions: “she tu r ned a silve r b r acelet r ound and r ound he r w r ist”, which indicates to us that the girl is not as simple as it seems. Furthermore, the author mentions a silver bracelet for a reason. In many cultures silver is representative of moon energy and is the balance between black and white. It is believed to be the symbol of strength, clarity, focus, and the feminine energy. It is also the color of the Greek goddess Artemis. Mangan’s sister probably has a clue about the boy’s feelings and yet she talks not about love, but a bazaar “Araby” which she can’t visit. She knows that he will go there to buy something for her and that’s exactly what she needs from him.

The story reaches its climax with what Joyce calls an “epiphany”: a term borrowed from theology and applied to a moment of unexpected revelation. The narrator is full of romantic expectations of Araby and he cannot think of anything else, however, he is sadly disappointed when he finally arrives there. In reality the splendid bazaar turns out to be a rather darkened place where the sound of coins is heard from everywhere. But the epiphany occurs in the boy’s consciousness when he overhears the petty and incomplete conversation at the bazaar. He believes to have been self-deluded because he has placed too much faith in Mangan’s sister. His ignorance of human relations has caused him to adore a girl who has turned out to be mercenary enough to manipulate him.

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