JOYCE

LUCK CLUB

SYMBOLISM IN ARABY (CONTINUED):

Welcome Guidelines Listserv Discussion based on: "Dubliners" Read Araby Discussion topics: Initial impressions Symbolism Blindness and Insight "Brown" in Araby Random Thoughts

Chandra says: Instead of stating my point of view again about reading in between lines, about whether I should be infleuenced by experts or not, and also because with Rasik's contribution the discussion has proceeded quite far from the point where I started today, may I ask you, Maureen and Champa, to retell the story of Araby to me (us) in terms of your symbols? What significance does the biblical reference have for you Champa? If the halo around the girl meant that she was (or could have been) Mary, what does it mean to you? What is its significance to the story as a whole? I am not looking here for how it could infleunce one's way of looking at literature, but rather how it matters to the story with respect to the meaning it conveys. Maureen, having written a paper on it, (you did give out some points of what wrote), can you summarise your paper for me? You see, for me who has read Joyce for the first time in Araby, this story is a very well written love story. Nothing more, nothing less. Would that summarisation be different if you read in between lines? Also, what place does Araby have among all of Joyce's works? Is it a typical Joyce? Does his writing get - to a newbie like me - more difficult when I go to his other works? Champa answers: >What significance does the biblical reference have for you Champa? If the >halo around the girl meant that she was (or could have been) Mary, what >does it mean to you? What is its significance to the story as a whole? I am >not looking here for how it could infleunce one's way of looking at literature, >but rather how it matters to the story with respect to the meaning it conveys. Now I have read two of Joyce's work,the next one 2 Sisters. I don't want to skip ahead but there too priests and chalice appear. It makes me feel he is commenting on the religious dogmas that made one believe in something only to find out that he was deceived. It is also a commentary on the town people and perhaps their close mindedness - the blind street actually is very telling. What is the story about = it is about self-awareness and you can interpret it as adolescent love and wanting to buy a gift for the loved one and be disappointed by the rebuff from the sales clerk and being unable to return with the gift and the frustration; or it can be representation of what is human in all of us, the need to believe in the spiritual and the moment of realization perhaps that there is really nothing out there. Knowing that Joyce left the church makes me believe it is the second one but it can be read at both levels. Many short stories work this way - where nothing really "happens". The Yellow Wallpaper is about a woman slowly losing her mind. So what is the story? Actually there is a story in that you know her husband is driving her crazy but somehow that is not the whole point.

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