Monday, December 3, 2012
"Araby" Close Reading
The opening paragraph to "Araby" is interesting to me because of the concise yet subtle way in which it captures the themes of the entire story. The paragraph starts off with a strange phrase, "North Richmond Street, being blind...", which can be interpreted in several ways. For example, one could say that this particular street in Dublin is probably isolated or closed off from the rest of the city, which could help explain the boy's unawareness of the bazaar. However, the last sentence of the paragraph states that the houses of the street "gazed at one another", and I believe that this is evidence that the blindness mentioned earlier does not refer to the street itself but instead its residents, particularly the boy in this instance as we see throughout the story. Another theme the paragraph addresses is the use of religion as a means to freedom or escape, as illustrated through the way in which North Richmond Street "was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free." This scene represents the story because, while the boy likely does not see Mangan's sister as a god, he certainly does worship her and considers her nature to be angelic and pure, and he definitely uses her and Araby as a means of escape. On the other hand, it is implied that the hour when the boys are free is a daily occurrence, or in other words the street always eventually reverts to silence, and, like the students' freedom, the boy's escape from reality through the girl and the bazaar will inevitably only be temporary.
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Its interesting how many sensory details are used on the first page, most of it attributed to the street or the houses. Aside from what you quoted, there is one more reference to the "blind end" (19) of the street, as well as the personification of the houses being “conscious of decent lives within them,” (19) that they “gazed at one another,” (19) and finally the houses “had grown somber.” (19) Put together, this makes the entire block not only feel alive, and I agree that the emotions of the block reflect that of the people that live there.
ReplyDeletePhil and Jaime have revealed Joyce's personification of the houses as "conscious" and "gaz[ing] at one another." Look to the end of that sentence: Joyce describes the houses' "faces" as "brown" and "imperturbable." How do those two adjectives add to their interpretations?
ReplyDeleteThe adjectives "brown" and "imperturbable" serve as further evidence of the paralysis of Dublin. We have previously seen Joyce focus on color to describe objects of stagnation: the yellow-toothed old man in "An Encounter" and Father Flynn's "big discolored teeth" in "The Sisters." Here, Joyce uses brown in a similar fashion, connecting the houses to paralysis by describing them with a color that is often associated (along with yellow) with death and decay. "Imperturbable" connects the houses with paralysis through the idea that they are unable to be bothered. Joyce is attempting to perturb the people of Dublin by giving them "one good look at themselves in [his] nicely polished looking glass," but here alludes to the impossibility of evoking change where there is paralysis. By describing the houses in this manner Joyce has also gone beyond demonstrating the stagnation of Dublin's people and insinuated that the city itself is paralyzed.
Deleteps: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/imperturbable and http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=imperturbable&searchmode=none
ReplyDeletemeant to include those in my first comment, perhaps as a hyperlink.
I agree with the interpretation that the street itself is blind. A blind street has no new traffic and is cut off from the outside world. Similarly, the residents are stuck, without any chance of improving their lives. The reader can notice the sense of stagnation as the narrator uses words such as "dies" (sense of death), "musty" (which suggests something old or even moldy), "littered," "useless," "curled," and "damp," (to describe the outdated papers in the back room of the house), "straggling," (as Joyce described the dying bushes) and "rusty." This paralysis of both the street and of the boy's situation, later contrasts with the excitement that Mangan's sister inspires in him.
ReplyDeleteThe adjective "brown" furthers the sense of paralysis as brown is a quiet, boring, and usual color. Furthermore "imperturbable" also describes the street and the residents as unchanging and calm.