"Eveline" by James Joyce
Like "Araby," "Eveline" is a story of young love, but unlike Mangan's sister, Eveline has already been courted and won by Frank, who is taking her away to marry him and "to live with him in Buenos Ayres" (49). Or has she? When she meets him at the station and they are set to board the ship, Eveline suddenly decides she cannot go with Frank, because "he would drown her" in "all the seas of the world" (51). But Eveline's rejection of Frank is not just a rejection of love, but also a rejection of a new life abroad and escape from her hard life at home. And water, as the practical method of escape, as well as a symbol of both rejuvenation and emotional vitality, functions in a multi-faceted way to show all that Eveline loses through her fear and lack of courage. By not plunging into those "seas of the world that tumble[d] about her heart" (51), Eveline forsakes escape, life, and love for the past, duty, and death.
Like many of the stories in Dubliners, moving eastward in "Eveline" is associated with new life. But for Eveline, sailing eastward with Frank is as much an escape as a promise of something better. From the story's opening, she is passive and tired (46) and remembers old neighbors like "the Waters" who have since escaped east "to England " (47). She looks forward to "going... away like the others" (47). She admits she will not be missed at her job (47) and at nineteen, without the former protection of her older brothers, she is beginning to feel "herself in danger of her father's violence" (48). Her father takes what little money she earns and she is in charge of her two younger siblings as well (48). The sound of a street organ playing an Italian tune is both a call to her from the East across the water and a reminder of her mother's death. She cannot end up like her mother, "living a life of commonplace sacrificies closing in final craziness" and her only recourse is to "escape" with Frank; "He would save her" (50) if she goes with him east across the seas. When she fails to go with Frank, Eveline indeed succumbs to the prospect of an imprisoning life like her mother's.
Water also signifies rejuvenation, the possibilities of a new life. In contrast to her present life full of "hard work-a hard life," Eveline looks forward to exploring "another life with Frank" (48) and a new her across the seas (49). Compared to re-living her dead mother's life, Eveline has a chance to live her own life and begin something with Frank that is brand new, open-ended, and unstamped by the impressions of the past. Though she can hardly imagine what her new life might be like, Eveline knows it will be unlike the one mapped out for her by her father. But perhaps it is the very uncertainty about her life with Frank that finally terrifies her. Known duty and hardship is finally preferable to unknown possibility, and as Frank draws her into the "seas of the world," she feels at last that "it was impossible" (51). One cannot begin a new life unless one leaves behind the old, and "the seas" of rebirth are too much for her. Unable to make that leap of faith, she remains behind, "passive, like a helpless animal" (51).
Eveline also rejects love and emotional vitality as represented by "the seas of the world" (51).When she contemplates leaving with Frank, Eveline thinks of home as providing "shelter and food" and the companionship of "those she had known all her life" (47); not once does she think of leaving behind those who love her. Eveline knows her father and siblings depend on her and need her but she doesn't feel loved. But "Frank was very kind, manly, open- herated" (48) and after the "excitement" of being courted she "had begun to like him" (49). She knows Frank can give her a new life, and "perhaps love, too" and "she had a right to happiness" (50). Yet Eveline is not certain she will find love with Frank, just as she doesn't know what kind of life they will have together. The adult world of desire, longing, fulfillment, and heartbreak roil about in "the seas of the world that tumbled about her heart" (51) and this unknown world of emotional vitality and power is as frightening to Eveline as the physical reality of sailing halfway round the world. In this realm she might drown, yes, but she might just as likely learn to swim. Yet by declining "to test the waters" Eveline condemns herself to a life without emotional fulfillment at all. In the rite of passage from adolescence into adulthood, Eveline feels only that the transformative experience will "drown" her old self and she is unable to adequately imagine a new self emerging from the waves.
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http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Symbol-Church-Joyces-Araby/99752
The Symbol Of The Church In Joyce's Araby
Joyce's short story "Araby" is filled with symbolic images of a church. It opens and closes with strong symbols, and in the body of the story, the images are shaped by the young), Irish narrator's impres-sions of the effect the Church of Ireland has upon the people of Ire-land. The boy is fiercely determined to invest in someone within this Church the holiness he feels should be the natural state of all withinit, but a succession of experiences forces him to see that his determi-nation is in vain. At the climax of the story, when he realizes that hisdreams of holiness and love are inconsistent with the actual world,his anger and anguish are directed, not toward the Church, but to-ward himself as "a creature driven by vanity." In addition to the im-ages in the story that are symbolic of the Church and its effect uponthe people who belong to it, there are descriptive words and phrases that add to this representational meaning.
symbolism in araby
http://book.douban.com/review/1156048/
In literature, a symbol is a thing that stands for or suggests something else by reason of relationship, association, convention or accidental resemblance, especially a visible sign of something invisible. [1] Sometimes, symbols are created by the artists in their works. And by using them, the artists can interpret the objective world in a subjective perspective. So symbolism is an important means for a writer to create excellent works.
As in the novel Araby, James Joyce used large amounts of symbolic imageries to create a typical setting, help the plots develop and indicate the hero’s characteristics. By analyzing the symbols in Araby, we can have a deep insight into the story and know the main theme in Dubliners better. And the symbols are as follows:
1. Blind
The North Richard Street was “blind”, and “I” used a blind to hide myself from being seen by Mangan’s sister. These are the two “blind” used in the novel.
The first one is an adjective, which means that the street is closed at one end. As it’s a blind street, people living in the street are difficult to communicate with the ones outside. So it indicates the station of un-open up of Dublin as well as Ireland . But the people living in the street are all pleased with the situation. [2] So the boy wished to get away from it. This helps the plot develop.
As for the second “blind”, it is a noun. By using the blind, Mangan’s sister couldn’t see me. However, the blind also prevented me from seeing her clearly. This indicates that the boy’s dream was only a childish dream (Mangan’s sister); it is hard to be realized for “I” only “watched it from a blind”.
2. Mangan’s sister
Mangan’s sister was the girl to whom “I” had paid lots of attention; “I” watched her secretly; “I kept her brown figure always in my eye”; and when “I” was doing stranger prayers that “I” didn’t understand, her name sprang to my lips.
These are all telling that Mangan’s sister is the boy’s dream, or his idol. But in the whole novel, the girl’s name hasn’t appeared. Why? Because what “I” know about my dream is only something superficial. My dream is just like the temple in the air, forming in the boy’s mind without any deep thinking or any deep understanding. “I” liked Mangan’s sister just as I liked The Memoirs of Vidocq, a book I found in the priest’s remains---“I liked the last best because its leaves were yellow.”
This agrees with the boy’s age and his experience. He was a boy on the way of growing up and forming his own views of the society. But he was still too young to have a good understanding of the real world. Although we know that his dream could be easily broken, the most important thing is that he had a dream. This is also important for the Irishmen who were under the control of the British government then.
3. The North Richmond Street
The street was blind. Besides, the surroundings were all unpleasant. My house was full of “musty air”. The houses in the street “had grown sombre”. When my aunt and “I” went marketing, we were “jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curse…”
As James Joyce said, the main theme of the novels in Dubliners was paralysis. And the condition of the North Richmond Street was a good proof for it. But in the whole Ireland as well, all the streets were almost the same. So Joyce turned to voluntary-exile to get rid of the unpleasant thing in Ireland . So do the boy in the novel. He had a strong hatred for the street, as is demonstrated by the sentence “I was thankful that I could see (the street) so little.”
So the street was a symbol for the whole Ireland .
4. Araby
In the novel, the word “Araby” plays an important role, as it is the title word. And Araby is “a splendid bazaar” where Mangan’s sister recommended me to go.
Araby is an old name for Arab. Besides, in the novel, it “cast an Eastern enchantment over me”. So Araby is a place with the Oriental fragrance in Dublin . And we can also see that the boy had a strong desire to make a trip there. So we can conclude that Araby is a dream new world for the boy, as Mangan’s sister is a fairy who guild the boy there.
However, it seems that the other people, especially the elder people living in the street paid little attention to my desire. And my uncle just “answered me curtly” when “I” told him my plan to Araby. And he also went home too late that night to let me go to Araby on time. So this indicates again that Dubliners as well as the Irishmen were all paralyzed. They paid little attention to their dreams. [3] And they were well intentioned but narrow in the views and blind to higher values. This is what Joyce felt disappointed of.
To our delight, my aunt indeed cared about my wish for Araby and blamed my uncle for being late. This shows that Joyce want to hold his wish for the future of Ireland . And when “I” got a florin from my uncle, “I” went to Araby immediately. However on my way there, the condition seemed to be a bit unpleasant. The train was “deserted”, “bare” and it had “an intolerable delay”. Even when the train started “slowly”, “it crept onward among ruinous houses”. These all indicate the difficulties one will confront on his way to the dream place. But anyhow at last “I” arrived at Araby late at night.
But Araby, the dream new world for the boy, turned out to be “darkness” and “silence”. And the people who served me at the stall spoke to her customer “out of a sense of duty”. This all disappointed me.
And there is a casual dialogue between two men and a woman in the novel. This dialogue had no special setting or surprising ending, but it was so real that when we read the words, we can imagine the scene in our mind. [4] But it is the dialogue, in addition with the other things the boy met in Araby, that disappointed me. So this is an allusion of the life of the young adults in Dublin who own the characteristic of ignorance and conventionalism.
One the whole, the bazaar Araby indicates that even when the Irishmen were chasing their dream, they would be disappointed just because of their own society and their blind to the bright future. So Joyce became sad about the reality.
5. The priest
At the beginning of the novel, we know that a priest had been a tenant of the boy’s home. “He (the priest) had been a very charitable priest”, and he “had left all his money to the institutions and the furniture of his house to his sister”. So in this way, the priest was indeed a good citizen of Dublin .
Besides, form the names of the books that “I” found, (The Abbot, The Devout Communicant and The Memoirs of Vidocq), of which one is about religion and two are about exploration, we can see that the priest was also an imaginative person. So he had given his life to both piety and flights of imaginations.
However, the priest had gone, just like his “rusty bicycle-pump”, deserted and forgotten by other Dubliners. If all the good citizens had all gone away, how could Dublin be a good city? So the priest is a symbol of ht vital past, a contrast to the “blind” and paralyzed present. It tells us that the freedom of the Ireland has gone and people then had no passion for a bright future.
On the other hand, the priest was also a symbol for religion belief because of his special status. In fact from the analysis before, we know that the priest was a man full of imagination. But in fact, a priest should be conventional. So this imaginative priest indicates Joyce’s doubt of the belief of Catholicism. [5]
6. Other subtle Symbols
Besides the major symbols in Araby, there are still some subtle ones that could not be ignored.
At the beginning of the novel, we can see “a central apple tree” in a “wild garden behind the house”. On seeing the words “Apple tree”, we can immediately think of the myth between Adam and Swan in the Garden of Eden. In this novel, the apple tree id a symbol for the boy’s first love as well as a wish to try something new. [5] But the tree was in a “wild garden behind the house”. The condition was so oppressed that the tree might not grow up robustly. This means that a trial for a new thing wasn’t encouraged by the Irish society, and the boy’s love towards Mangan’s sister couldn’t breed some results.
Also at the beginning, “light form the kitchen windows had filled the areas”. (There are also some other descriptions of the light, such as “Some distant lamp or lighted window gleamed over me.”) From the analysis before, we know that the dark blind street is a symbol for Ireland . So here the light becomes a symbol for the country’s future. However, the light was from the kitchen window. How dim, how subtle! So Joyce here indicates the gloomy future for his own country.
Besides, the “chalice” is mentioned when “I” went marketing with my aunt: “I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through the throng of foes.” Here the “chalice” is a symbol for the belief of Catholicism.
James Joyce is famous for the using of “stream of consciousness” method in his works. But he is also good at setting proper background, creating symbols and using allusions. From the novel Araby, we can see a lot of symbols were created by Joyce and they located everywhere in the texts.
However different people will read Joyce’s works form different perspective. So all the symbols listed above are just my own understanding of the novel Araby with the help of my teacher Miss Gao Fen and the works listed below. And I want to quote Professor Derek Attridge’s words to end my paper: “Joyce’s writing can reveal sources of fascination and exhilaration which you were not expecting to find, and if you feel at times that Joyce is laughing at you just as much as you are laughing at him, you have begun to appreciate the delightfully unsettling energies of his art.”
http://www.enotes.com/araby/group/discuss/symbolism-araby-3523
Joyce writes in his letter to Grant Richards “My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the centre of paralysis.” In ‘Araby’ Joyce explores Dublin as a paralytic locale and this paralysis is projected through Joyce’s symbols. How do you identify and interpret these symbols?
What Joyce says goes right along with several symbols that he uses in the story "Araby." For example, one symbol is the boy's neighborhood. It is a dank, dark, depressing street filled with look-a-like dwellings. The street and its dwellings are constricting and claustrophobic in nature. This adds to this theme of "paralysis." Another element of "paralysis" or constriction is how the boy observes his object of desire. He has to spy on her from the front room, for example, through a window, and he has to make sure he is not observed by his friend's sister (the object of his desire).
The dead priest who once lived in a back room of the narrator's home seems significant here. Although he is not a living character in the story, he is a definite presence. His books, one particularly old and musty with its yellow pages, suggests a freezing of time. The narrator loses himself in the priest's old books. He likes best the one with the yellow pages (the oldest one). The narrator formulates his romantic illusions and aspirations from these books. His personal development in learning to live in the real world is paralyzed, in a sense, until he finds reality at the bazaar instead of the enchantment he expected.
The narrator seems to live in a type of paralysis, also. He drinks to deal with the drabness of his life on North Richmond Street . Mangan's sister seeks escape through church retreats rather than leave this place and seek a more satisfying future elsewhere.
Symbolism in James Joyce's Eveline
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