James Joyce's "Araby," There Is Essay

The following quotation, in which he leaves the bazaar empty-handed, emphasizes the fact that the narrator had egregiously deluded himself about his perceived romance. "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger" (Joyce). The "anger" the narrator experiences is understandable and is in reaction to this dearth of money and inability to produce a talisman that is a token of his affection for Mangan's sister. What is far more meaningful, however, is the "anguish" he feels, which is demonstrative of his despair in knowing that he cannot afford presents for Mangan's sister and will not consummate his feelings for her ever -- and is instead headed for a life of poverty, dinginess and mediocrity.

The existence of the narrator's aunt and uncle confirm the fact that more than likely, the narrator will share their fate of living in poor conditions, with little pleasure beyond that of working for enough money to eat their next meal. A brief look at some of the facets of life that the narrator and his family go through hints at a future in which these undesirable conditions will persist. An excellent example of these circumscribing conditions is found in the narrator's trip to the market with his aunt, in which they "walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of the labourers, the shrill litanies of shopboys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks, the nasal chanting of street singers" (Joyce).These conditions -- the cursing, the lewd inebriation of those who pass by -- all of which the narrator and his aunt endure to obtain necessities at the market, are the narrator's reality. His affection for Mangan's sister remains a fantasy, something that eludes him and which he cannot actualize. The scene of the trip to the market is merely one other way in which the author implies that the narrator is fated for an existence in these same, semi-impoverished conditions -- and that to aspire to anything more will only disappoint him.

All of these examples, the fact that Mangan's sister is joining a convent and cannot engage in pleasurable activities as a result, the fact that the narrator is too poor to buy her a souvenir from the bazaar and that his family and him ive a life of hard work and little pleasure -- allude to the despair and disappointment that virtually all of the characters in Araby endure and are fated for. This life they lead and that which they will more than likely continue to lead is extremely pedestrian, characteristically unromantic, and rife with dinginess and mediocrity. The author offers no hope for any of the characters to escape such an existence -- least of all for the narrator's unfulfilled crush on Mangan's sister.

Works Cited

Joyce, James. "Araby." The Eserver Collection. 1914. Web. http://fiction.eserver.org/short/araby.html.....