Introduction
James Joyce’s short stories comprise a unique category of literature that reflects an intertwined combination of psychological issues, life experiences, the cultural setting of Ireland, and the philosophical implications. The writer is an Irish author who created and lived on the verge of the nineteenth and twentieth-century and is considered a prominent literary figure of the twentieth century (Axelrod and Cooper 410). His short story entitled “Araby” from the collection called Dubliners is an example of a coming-of-age short piece of writing. Through first-person narration and the focus on internal personal feelings, the writer conveys the challenges of becoming an adult. In “Araby,” Joyce opposes private matters and public issues to illustrate the transition from youth to adulthood with the loss of innocence marking the main character’s journey.
The Theme of Love as a Trigger of Maturing
Throughout the short story, the narration is delivered from the first-person perspective. The protagonist is a boy or a young man who describes his memories of when he spent time with his friend Mangan (Axelrod and Cooper 411). His descriptions of the town and his experiences as he grew up are very detailed and filled with observations and personal feelings. The protagonist’s name is unknown to the reader, as well as the name of the girl he falls in love with is also left without mentioning. This element allows for concentrating the audience’s attention on the essence of the process of coming of age as a generalizable issue characteristic for all humankind.
The narrator matures as the story progresses; his focus shifts from mere observations of the town’s realities, his games with his friend, to the first feelings of attraction and love to a girl. In such a manner, Joys uses the structure and story development as a tool of demonstrating the evolution of human experiences in life, which grow steadily as one becomes an adult. Indeed, at the beginning of the story, as the main character describes his childish, playful moments with his friend, he refers to the details in the streets that create a unique atmosphere of a carefree childhood.
The writer uses many descriptive words to emphasize the details. Joyce states: “the career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses, where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages” (Axelrod and Cooper 411).
However, as the story progresses, the protagonist concentrates his attention not on the surroundings but on the girl who is his friend’s sister. He watches her and falls in love, which is evident from the way he describes her appearance. Indeed, the narrator is particularly interested in the feminine features of his friend’s sister. He describes as he looked at her from a distance and noticed as “her dress swung as she moved her body, and the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side” (Axelrod and Cooper 411). Thus, Joyce uses this implicit evolution of emotional state that shifts from innocent childhood to maturing manhood by describing the feelings of the narrator.
The details in the description of the town reflect the maturing process of the protagonist in the context of his experience of first love. In particular, as the narrator describes his obsession with the girl, he states that her image follows him everywhere he goes. In contrast to the description of the city as it was presented at the beginning of the story, toward its end, the protagonist notices different details. In the beginning, his attention was drawn to details that a child would notice, such as the smells of food near houses, lighting, and darkness, mud, and other simple observations (Axelrod and Cooper 411).
However, once he falls in love, he notices the features in the town that adults would pay attention to. He describes walking “through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs’ cheeks” (Axelrod and Cooper 411). This narrative structuring technique is used by the author to reflect the process of maturing through the influence of the feelings of love.
Importantly, the writer emphasizes the role of social and psychological challenges associated with growing up. The shift from being innocent and open to the world to the difficulties of managing one’s emotions and struggles in life is at the center of the short story. The opposition between private and public becomes challenging to handle, which is evident from the description of the main characters roaming in the cold empty rooms in solitude (Axelrod and Cooper 412).
He does not share his feelings as he would as a child because he matures and transforms into one of the adults he observed in the streets. The final sentences of the story illustrate this idea: “gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger” (Axelrod and Cooper 413). Thus, through the experience of first love, the narrator entered the stage of adulthood in his life, which transformed him from a carefree child into a disturbed adult.
Conclusion
To summarize the analysis, the short story by James Joyce depicts the process of coming of age or maturing of the main character that exists the stage of childhood and enters his adulthood while encountering romance. The writer uses the narration focused on the perspectives typical for a child and for an adult to illustrate the shift in the personality. Overall, the unity of structure, narrative, and descriptive details allows Joyce to construct an appealing coming-of-age short story.
Work Cited
Axelrod, Rise B., and Charles R. Cooper. Sticks and Stones and Other Student Essays. 10th ed., Macmillan, 2019.