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Rajeev: His use would suggest a narrative where a character was standing one way in the street, turned around and saw a new phenomena. Blind then 'blind', perhaps that can fit in with the theme of infatuation the tale tells? Maureen's writes: thanks for your 'blindness' thoughts rajeev...thinking a bit here as i avoid doing work i am supposed to be doing :)...i wanna think about that blindness idea and consider some various interp's... --we have blind end of the street, as in dead end street, as gayatri mentioned and i think champa. i think that is a literal meaning that joyce did in fact intend to imply. i just had not realized it before. --we have blindness in terms of youthfulness, inexperience; vis a vis the theme of araby. our boy is blind and confused as he bears his chalice defiantly not understanding himself why he does it. --there is blindness in terms of a denial of something; by blind house he could have very well meant a house that is sexually dead, blind, bleached, etc. [the house was previously occupied by a *priest*, now is occupied by his *pious* aunt and uncle...] --there is the 'blind wild garden of eden' [these are actual descriptives used in the tanakh] in which adam and eve live in ignorant bliss [we can say youthful innocence as well?]; they have been forewarned by god that they can do anything, anything at all, are totally free to use their free will, except for *one* thing -- they are forbidden from eating fruit from the tree of knowledge. thus, they are to remain 'blind' (symbolically) and by god's *decree*. a little while later, the scheming satan enters saying to eve, 'oh why the devil ;-) is that guy trying to keep you from knowledge, come on, what can it hurt to eat the fruit and gain knowledge? he has knowledge, why shouldn't you?' and eve takes the bait, she is convinced and then convinces adam. afterwards the destruction comes. so our araby boy at the end i think feels like he has been tempted by the devil, he appears *like* a devil to himself, no?, and he is angry that he feels this way. --there are surely others or we have not thought of yet... --my point is that what is so marvy about joyce is that this idea of blindness 'works' on all of these levels, in all of these ways. i find that remarkable about him and only a handful of other authors have done that. it is rare to find prose that is so multi-layered with meaning, so perfectly constructed (like rushdie's :). i was also thinking about two other themes, blockages/barriers and the color brown, which someone else mentioned. some barriers...our boy says, "I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it *stood between* me and my *desire*, seemed to me child's play, ugly monotonous child's play." and, "On Saturday morning I reminded my uncle that I wished to go to the bazaar in the evening. He was fussing at the hallstand, looking for the hat-brush, and answered me curtly: `Yes, boy, I know.' *As he was in the hall I could not go into the front parlour and lie at the window.* I felt the house in *bad humour* and walked slowly towards the school. The air was pitilessly raw and already my heart misgave me." and i don't know what to make of the color brown but it has been on my mind since it was brought up before... it would be good to identify each time he uses 'brown' and then analyze what he is doing with it (he calls houses brown and 'imperturbable', the girl is brown a few times, ????). sorry for my bubbling, bubbly, high spirited enthusiasm but i have already professed my undying love for araby :)) |
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