The first phrases that spring to mind while thinking of James Joyce’s short novel “Araby” are passion, adolescence, stupidity, and maturity. James writes about a kid who falls in love with the a sister to his best friend, who does not seem to notice or care about him throughout the novel. The youngster, who has not been identified, resides in a run-down town. Throughout the novel, several individuals lead to the boy’s maturation and finally guide him into maturity. Sister to Mangan, the kid’s uncle, the pastor, and the girl at the market all contribute to the maturation of the youngster. The narrator matures/changes due to his connections with his friends, his encounters with authoritative people, his experiences in his environment, and his love for everything in which he became engaged.
The protagonist’s maturity is mirrored in his relations with his allies. As his obsession with Mangan’s sister intensifies, he loses interest in playing with his close friends and going to school school. Eventually, the things that used to be vital to him seemed trivial. He even starts to feel greater to his pals, referring to his everyday existence as “ugly repetitive child’s play” since it now seems to stand between him and his crush (Rokeya and Ahammed 142). He also begins spending less time with allies and observing them from afar. The protagonist observes them from the front window on the night of the Araby marketplace: “Their shouts reached me destabilized and confused and pressing my brow adjacent to the cold glass, I peered across at the dark home where she resided” (Joyce James). The glass divides the storyteller from his pals while playing in the street, both physically and symbolically.
Coming of age also manifests itself through the narrator’s encounters with authoritative figures, such as his aunt, uncle, and instructor. He starts to acquire a more stubborn attitude and becomes irritated when his aunt and uncle dismiss his wishes. In a subtle act of defiance on the night of the Araby market, the storyteller refuses to smile at his uncle’s jokes. He also observes that the uncle is inebriated when he returns home that night, indicating that he is no longer wholly guiltless and can understand parts of the adult humanity. His evolving relationship with his teacher also shows that he is no longer worried of failing authorities. He witnesses his teacher getting stricter with him, but he remains incapable of taking his lessons seriously (Joyce James). As the novel unfolds, the he gets somewhat more disobedient, indicating that he is developing the ability to think alone of the grownups around him, a critical component of his maturity.
In a typical coming-of-age novel, the narrator encounters significant events that propel him or her into maturity. These experiences, including war, rape, grief, love, or economic struggle, frequently result in a rewarding insight or epiphany (Rokeya and Ahammed 144). In Araby, Joyce demonstrates the protagonist’s maturation via his sexual discovery, his unexpected separation from his companions, and his more disobedient attitude. However, his new knowledge and adulthood lead to displeasure rather than fulfillment. After the novel, the protagonist is left with nothing: he has failed to impress Mangan’s sister, and he has been alienated from his friends and has lost concern in his studies. While he hoped to escape his ordinary life, he soon discovers that flee may be more complicated than he projected.
Thus, the protagonist has acquired information, and experience does not provide pleasure but results in the loss of innocence. Moreover, it is at this period of loss of innocence that the narrator becomes aware of both his former naiveté and his religious predicament as a damaged “being.” The novel argues more widely via the narrator’s perspective that coming of age, although necessary for everyone, is not so much something to look forward to. It is a kind of disaster: the knowledge acquired is dark and painful and not always worth the inexperience lost.
In conclusion, Joyce uses several symbols throughout the novel to illustrate the boys’ development into adulthood. Joyce writes, “I sat looking at the clock for a while and then left the room when the ticking became irritating” (Joyce James). The clock’s ticking indicated the long and tedious road to maturity, and the fact that it angered him demonstrates his desire to enter adulthood immediately. Later in the novel, Joyce depicts a scene in which the youngster wishes he were a man despite his immaturity: “From the front window, I observed my buddies playing in the street” (Joyce James). It is as if he is an adult, towering over his companions and looking down on them, even though they are his age. Even under ideal conditions, the path from infancy to maturity is lengthy and tedious that all young men must endure. A route fraught with difficulties and sacrifices along the way, and when that road is lonely, with just oneself to depend on, the difficulties intensify to the point of becoming detrimental to the individuals concerned. It is especially apparent in James Joyce’s narrative “Araby,” where he depicts the challenges and tribulations of a young boy’s passage into maturity.
Work Cited
Joyce, James, et al. Araby. HarperPerennial Classics, 2014.
Rokeya, Ms, and A. K. Ahammed. “A Shattering Epiphany in James Joyce’s” Araby.”” Advances in Language and Literary Studies 8.5 (2017): 140-144.
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