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Zarqa comments on Well, it's not a love story but a story of sexual awakening in a pubescent boy...very different animals. This boy is enchanted by the neighbor girl and whatever dialogue they exchange is ambiguant because instead of showing us their interaction and communication, Joyce is showing us the blood pounding in the ears of the inexperienced, cloistered boy, blood which precludes true communication. Plus the girl wasn't being a tease when she invited him to Araby, I think. SHe was just making conversation....her conversation being something quite different from what the boy is capable of understanding. The boy just isn't as mature as the girl (was this the case with Adam and Eve? maybe :) To the boy, the girl is a neck, a twirling bracelet, and a peek of petticoat lace. All objects foreign and fear-filled and beyond meaning to the boy. He simply reacts to them physically, placing all his hopes and dreams (in effect funnelling his _life_, as he sees it) into catching yet another glimpse, another chance to breath the same air as she. In the boy's house there is religion/faith, death, his orphan status, and his uncle's drunkeness--but all he can fathom at this stage of his development into a man is yet another glance, a dreamed (albeit not even fully imagined and therefore perpetually elusive) meeting. The epiphany, if there is one, is the boy realizing that the world does not work according to one's dreams and aspirations. Manish adds: But I also believe that it was a love story, as I do not believe that description of the other person's face, or even emotions is an essential part of the love story(for that matter love itself:)). This was a case of the view point of the boy alone, and the girl plays(for me) no part in the story except that of bringing out the boys character. As Zarqua said in a post that the boy was less mature than the girl, I don't agree to that also, because the girl was'nt characterised AT ALL. She was shown just throught the eyes of the boy, and even if you call his behaviour infatuation, we still are not aware of the girls reactions to the whole thing except that one sentence which again was more to show the kind of devotion(call it foolishness, I don't:)) he had for the girl. And Zarqua you said : "Well, it's not a love story but a story of sexual awakening in a pubescent boy...very different animals." I can see the point that you are trying to make in the difference between love and sexual awakening out her and I want to agree with you also, the only problem being that this is the way many of the genuine love stories are shown to start by some of the great writers, by starting off with the 'falling for the girl/boy at the sight'(not necessarily the first..since life is a bit more than movies:)) and then developing it strongly supported by the involvement of the two personalitites as characters(and not just faces). So I have started seeing this as a first phase of love , in stories atleast. " This boy is enchanted by the neighbor girl and whatever dialogue they exchange is ambiguant because instead of showing us their interaction and communication, Joyce is showing us the blood pounding in the ears of the inexperienced, cloistered boy, blood which precludes true communication." Exactly the point, that it is not the words that are important here(leave alone what the girl says) but only how the boy is behaving in her presence.Which is why we(rather I) cannot judge anything about the girl. Ruth writes: well, there have been so many fruitful new interpretations, this list is great! I've found the discussion on sexual imagery particularly interesting - my friends might also say that I 'see Shiva everywhere'! Cigar just a cigar? Never! Anyway, I was thinking about the uncle figure in Araby: a literary representation of Joyce's own drunken father, perhaps? This would be fitting given the Freudian views of sexuality prevalent during the time, with such themes common to many contemporary authors; the father figure in Freudian sexual development has to figure as a kind of nemesis against which the sexually developing child must battle. This is kind of how I've re-read the 'Arab's farewll to his steed' passage, with the 'father' mocking the boy's sexual feeling, and prolonging his torture, as the lad paces the room with clenched fists and pent up desire...well, take it or leave it, fellow Joyceans! |
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