This is a brief analysis & literary commentary covering the following passage. It concerns itself with internal and external comparisons, but does not address the mechanics of the passage's placement within the text. Feel free to copy/re-credit/improve.
What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that evening! I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days. I chafed against the work of school. At night in my bedroom and by day in the classroom her image came between me and the page I strove to read. The syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me. I asked for leave to go to the bazaar on Saturday night. My aunt was surprised, and hoped it was not some Freemason affair. I answered few questions in class. I watched my master's face pass from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was not beginning to idle. I could not call my wandering thoughts together. 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.
The dominant feature in this passage seems to be a self-contrasting examination of the narrator's highly ironic self-repression. This is an expression of a common Joyce theme; the
narrator has been born into an established
industrial society which, by nature, tend to enforce its own brand of oppressive
conformism. Faced by inherently conflicting messages, desires and fears about expressing real emotion, the boy is
pressured into inaction.
This passage serves as one of the most overt expressions of the
theme of paralysis in the
Dubliners short stories examined thus far. Reliance on clear and simple phrases about
narrator's
wish to
"annihilate the tedious intervening days" and describing the
"innumerable follies wasting his waking hours", coupled with the image of the girl's face between him and the pages of his books create an impression reminiscent of the old man's 'thought orbits' described in
An Encounter. By becoming fixated on a
fantasy image the narrator's thoughts have become trapped in a endless
loop, and the longer his focus remains on his fantasy, the less chance he has to effect and correct his reality in any
meaningful fashion. The image of the girl has in a sense become an
opiate, lulling him into a false sense of expectation, while at the same time precluding the possibility that his dreams will reach fruition.
This following phrase, the last of the passage, seems the one of the most telling:
"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 The psychological distance between this sentiment and that expressed earlier in the story is astounding; just a short while earlier, the narrator described the
"career of his play", and how
"The cold stung he and his friends and {they} played till {their} bodies glowed." Play, which originally seemed to render enjoyable the worst of conditions now is compared to the dreary monotony of the narrator?s ceaseless anticipation.
Joyce's use of contrasting vocabulary also helps to bring out this change in the narrator; before, the "career of play" was enjoyable work, but now "
the serious work of life" is compared to dull play. In his attempt to win the
girl, and (
In a sense) become a respectable
young adult, the
narrator has to firmly reject that which was once a source of joy for him, repressing a major aspect of his persona.
Another fundamental
irony present within this paragraph is created through the divide between the narrator's
apparent movement towards
maturity and the way this newfound 'maturation' seems to affect his
worldview. Although the narrator has adopted a
condescending attitude towards "
child's play", he has unconsciously retreated further into his own fantasy. He describes how
"The syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me.", and how the image of the
girl "came between me and the page I strove to read." Rather then simply replacing the boy's previous perception of reality, this new focus seems self-destructive; he now "
chafed against" his work at school, and attracted the disapproval of both his
aunt and his
schoolmaster. He is no more grown up then before, and not only does he refuse to enter the 'adult world', but he has abandoned his healthy childhood unrealities for ones that can only cause him pain.
Ultimately, the
narrator's new fantasies may be destructive because, unlike his
childhood games, they are not of his own making.
Elsewhere in the story, the descriptions of prayers and religious rituals bringing up images of the girl, as well as his almost Obsessive-Compulsive chanting of 'O love' seem to indicate an almost dogmatic approach towards her; does he want a relationship for the right reasons, or simply because it is something that as been portrayed as validating, a reaffirmation of his place in society? Perhaps it is fortunate that the narrator's new delusions contribute to his repression; only when enough weight is put on him does he realize the true nature of his situation.
This was a grade 12 assingment from a little while ago.