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Araby Analysis Essay

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James Joyce’s narrative “Araby”, contains many microcosmic ideals. The narrative describes, in relation to the Dublin, Ireland of the period, maturity, pubescence, and public life. A.R. Coulthard stated that “Araby” is not a tale a young person’s initiation into adulthood but a “… dramatization of a soul-shriveling Irish asceticism which renders hopes and dreams not only foolish, but sinful.”(97). Coulthard chooses to focus plainly on the religious aspect of the tale and forgo the classic example of a coming of age story. Coulthard begins his analysis of the piece by introducing the narrator as the “…mature narrator, and not the naive boy.” (91). Coulthard uses the speakers cynicism about his school to expand his argument, “Although they were …show more content…

Coulthard states that, “…the narrator has become embittered rather than wiser, which was his destiny from the first for desiring joy in an environment that forbade it.” (97). The Christian environment may have forbade certain acts that may bring one joy, but the hold of the church was not apparently strong in the case of “Araby”. Coulthard introduces the priest as a symbol of repression and describes the air of an enclosed house as an image of repression, “air, musty from being long enclosed.” (98). Coulthard’s choice to segment the quote in the way in which he has is extremely misleading. The use of the segmented quote and its placement alongside of the description of the waste room would lead readers to believe that the musty air only hung in the one room, in reality, “air, musty from having been long enclosed, hung in all rooms.” (Joyce 15). The omission of the phrase “hung in all rooms” may lead the reader to associate the enclosed air with the waste room alone. The house was enclosed and musty due to the prior tenant’s, the priest, death and the house not being

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