Araby

Thesis statement

Growing up is an important and difficult part of a person's life. In the story “Araby,” author James Joyce describes the necessary act of maturing with a self-conscious ease.

Introduction

Araby, its overall theme is the boy's realization of his fall from grace. Within the story Joyce foreshadows this epiphany by using phrases such as "feeling I was about to slip." in reference to his praying, or when approaching the booth at the bazaar he "listened to the fall of the coins". In general, the word "fall", or words of a similar definition appear five times throughout the story (Delbanco & Cheuse, 129-569).

Araby setting analysis

In "Araby", James Joyce creates the larger part of the setting of a late 1800's or early 1900's lower income neighborhood of an urban city. By establishing this setting, he sets a basis in which the rest of the story is to take place.

Tone

Whatever leads us to infer the author's attitude?

Like a tone of voice, the tone of a story may communicate amusement, anger, affection, sorrow, contempt. It implies the feelings of the author, so far as we can sense them. Those feelings may be similar to the feelings expressed by the narrator of the story, but sometimes they may be dissimilar, even sharply opposed. The characters in a story may be regarded even as sad, but we sense that the author regards it as funny.

Fiction Element 1

In “Araby,” Joyce uses the contrast of light and darkness to show an internal and external boundary that is apparent in his life. The author describes his home with morose words and morbid references back to a priest that had died in one of the rooms. He also describes the school as inhibiting. However, when the boys are set free from their prison of an education, Joyce writes how, “we played until our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in a silent street.” The adult world seems dark and diluted, whereas when the boys are allowed to act like children they glow with light and brightness. The children would also remain hidden in shadows while watching for adults. A wall of curiosity and darkness blocks them from becoming comfortable with the more elderly people in the story. This contrast of light and dark represents the difference and barrier between being a child and becoming an adult (Delbanco & Cheuse, 129-569).

Joyce also showed the boundaries of adolescence through his awkward and ...