Araby’s Character Analysis

Concentrate with me for a few seconds. Are you ready? Ok… Hold my hand, let’s fly. We are now flying far away through time. We are back in time, and about thirteen years old. We are passing the United States and Europe, and are flying over the Middle East. Can you smell the strong Arabic coffee? I can hear the Jewish chants, church bells and Muslims prayers. We are flying through the Arabian deserts, over the oasis, and among the beautiful Arabian horses that are raising their heads full of pleasure while they are running, trying to follow us. Can you see this building? It’s just like Aladdin’s palace. I can remember all the myths of the Arabian nights, can you? Now, we are flying over Egypt, where the great pyramids are standing. Let’s land here for a few seconds. We are walking through the narrow streets of Cairo. Everything around seems old and dark. The old buildings look blind and the people’s faces are full of darkness. However, look at this. Can you see the light at the end of the street? It’s one of the ancient bazaars of Egypt; it’s the “Araby” bazaar. Do you know that these bazaars lead one to unexpected shops of every description? Let us take a look. People’s faces in the bazaar are full of happiness and lightness. I have a weird feeling. It’s just “like summons to all my foolish blood” (Joyce 82). I can see my first love looking at me. I can hear that voice and “my body was like a harp, and her words, were like fingers running upon the wires”(Joyce 82). Look at this vase. It’s full of Arabian decorations and spiritual enchantment. Let’s buy it as a souvenir, to tell everybody about our journey when we go back home. It is time now to go back to our real age, let us fly back. While we were flying, the jar fell from our hands and we lost it. We lost our souvenir, and nobody will believe our journey. They will say that it was all illusions.

Araby”, James Joyce’s wonderful short story is narrated by a youthful flying soul who is full of dreams and desires. He becomes disappointed with the world of illusions, the first step that leads to adulthood. The writer is taking us on a full journey with an adult narrator who didn’t forget his special youthful moments. The first time people read “Araby,” they feel that the young protagonist is the narrator. At the same time, while reading the story more deeply, the reader will get an impression that the narrator of the story is not a youth. In contrast, he is a mature experienced man who is taking us on a journey to his unforgotten youthful hopes, desires and frustrations , which are all illustrated in a magnificent way that makes us remember our own youthful experiences. Because of the double focused narration of the story, first by the boy’s experience, then by a mature experienced man, the story gives a wider portrait to using sophisticated irony and symbolic imagery necessary to analyze the boy’s character.

The opening scene of the story paints a full portrait of an experienced adult narrator. This portrait gives the whole picture about the boy’s life and surroundings. The boy has grown up in an almost dying city. The symbolic images of the city between darkness and blindness give him a narrow vision of only the faintest symbols of romance, and few memories of active concern for God. Throughout the story, the writer contrasts darkness and lightness, which gives the reader the impression of lost spirituality and the boy’s dreams of restoring it. The narrator, as a boy, can’t comprehend the whole picture intellectually. He is living in a world of spiritual stagnation, and as a result, his outlook on the world is severely limited. He is innocent, ignorant and lost. He can only see specific images of a frustrating boring life in a dying and unimaginative city. He is searching for the light that he needs for his spirituality. He starts to look at the symbols he is surrounded by, what was left by the priest after he died. He thought that maybe this light exists on God’s side, but he didn’t find it. Then he turned to another symbol, the apple tree that he found in the backyard garden of his house. This is supposed to symbolize a religious enlightment, but he finds that this symbol is shadowed with the desolation of a blackened Eden. The boy’s character is indirectly suggested in the opening portrait of the story. Joyce draws the man’s point of view by describing the young protagonist as a three-dimensional designed portrait. The reader can see the whole picture clearly. On the other hand, the boy with his narrow view of the whole picture around him, appears to the reader as the main actor who helps to reveal the symbolic meanings that appears in the whole portrait.

At the same time, another symbol starts to appear in Joyce’s portrait. Magna’s sister, the only symbol of light, appears in the boy’s world of darkness. Because of her, he finds himself entering a new experience, his first love. His imagination and vocabulary while thinking about her is limited by the experiences of his religious training and the romantic novels he has read. The result is an idealistic and confused feeling of physical and spiritual love. Although he has “Never spoken to her, except for a few casual words” (Joyce 82), her name became a “summons to all his foolish blood” (Joyce 82). She becomes an image to all he seeks. In his only conversation with her, she reveals that she will not be able to go to the “Araby” bazaar, although she would like to. She suggests that he should go. He speaks impulsively: “If I go, I will bring you some thing” (Joyce 83). His opportunity has come. He will go to “Araby”, which represents his soul’s luxuries, then he can bring a talisman, the Arabian symbol of restoring life. At this point, he feels that the lost light of his world will be restored. The boy as narrator starts to reveal more symbols from the whole portrait that was drawn from the narrator as a man, but this time, he starts with the light symbols.

However, he spends his days and nights thinking and dreaming about the enchanted Eastern word, “Araby.” He builds all his hopes and dreams on that moment when he goes to the “Araby” bazaar and brings something for the one he loves. The delay he encounters from his uncle to get the money needed to go to the “Araby” bazaar frustrates him. Finally, his uncle arrives. His uncle feels sorry for him, because he knows that he will be disappointed after all these dreams of going to the “Araby” bazaar. He reminds him about “The Arabs farewell to his steed” (Joyce 84) which stands for the Arabs willingness to welcome his departed horse is only in his own dreams. It mirrors his farewell to romantic illusions. Arriving at the bazaar, he finds it nearly empty. He realizes, “a silence like that which pervades a church after a service” (Joyce 84). The church is empty; it is not attended by the faithful nor does it contain the spirituality he seeks. Suddenly, the boy realizes that he has placed all his love and hope in a world that doesn’t exist, except in his imagination. He experiences an epiphany, his awakening moment, from a world full of light and truth to broken dreams that led to the first step of his adulthood. Again, as a boy, the narrator can only have a limited vision of his own interests; he couldn’t see the picture of disappointment that his uncle warned him about until the end of the story.

In the wonderful way that James Joyce paints his portrait in the story, he gives the reader deeper explanations of the boy’s character. We almost can feel the same feelings that the boy encounters throughout the story. Now, and after this experience, we can go back in time, and explain our own youthful experiences to ourselves more clearly from a double focused view.