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1、“Araby“Backgrounds IntroductionIrelands major religion, Roman Catholicism, dominated Irish culture, as it continues to do today although to a lesser extent. Many families sent their children to schools run by Jesuit priests (like the one the narrator in attends) and convent schools run by nuns (like
2、 the one Mangans sister attends). Catholicism is often seen as a source of the frequent conflict in Irish culture between sensuality and asceticism, a conflict that figures prominently in Joyces autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man . In many ways, Catholicism, particularly
3、as practiced at the turn of the century, was an extremely sensuous religion, emphasizing intense personal spiritual experience and surrounding itself with such rich trappings as beautiful churches, elegant paintings and statues, otherworldly music, and sumptuous vestments and altar decorations. On t
4、he other hand, the Churchs official attitude toward enjoyment of the senses and particularly toward sexuality was severe and restrictive. The ideal woman was the Virgin Mary, who miraculously combined virginal purity with maternity. Motherhood was exalted, but any enjoyment of sexuality, even in mar
5、riage, was considered a sin, as were the practice of birth control and abortion. The inability to reconcile the spiritual and sensual aspects of human nature can be seen in the boys feelings toward Mangans sister in He imagines his feelings for her as a “chalice“-a sacred religious object-and so wor
6、shipful is his attitude that he hesitates even to speak to her. Yet his memories of her focus almost exclusively on her body-her figure silhouetted by the light, the “soft rope of her hair,“ “the white curve of her neck,“ the border of her petticoat. Even the image of the chalice is ambivalent, sinc
7、e its cup-like shape and function suggests a sexual connotation. The boy never resolves this conflict between spirituality and sensuality. Instead, when confronted with the tawdriness of a shopgirls flirtation at the bazaar, he abruptly dismisses all his feelings as mere “vanity.“Introduction of the
8、 story and the author“Araby“ is one of fifteen short stories that together make up James Joyces collection, Dubliners. Although Joyce wrote the stories between 1904 and 1906, they were not published until 1914.Dubliners paints a portrait of life in Dublin, Ireland, at the turn of the 20th century. I
9、ts stories are arranged in an order reflecting the development of a child into a grown man. The first three stories are told from the point of view of a young boy, the next three from the point of view of an adolescent, and so on. “Araby“ is the last story of the first set, and is told from the pers
10、pective of a boy just on the verge of adolescence. The story takes its title from a real festival which came to Dublin in 1894 when Joyce was twelve years old. Joyce is one of the most famous writers of the Modernist period of literature, which runs roughly from 1900 to the end of World War II. Mode
11、rnist works often include characters who are spiritually lost and themes that reflect a cynicism toward institutions the writer had been taught to respect, such as government and religion. Much of the literature of this period is experimental; Joyces writing reflects this in the use of dashes instea
12、d of quotation marks to indicate that a character is speaking. Joyce had a very difficult time getting Dubliners published. It took him over ten years to find a publisher who was willing to risk publishing the stories because of their unconventional style and themes. Once he found a publisher, he fo
13、ught very hard with the editors to keep the stories the way he had written them. Years later, these stories are heralded not only for their portrayal of life in Dublin at the turn of the century, but also as the beginning of the career of one of the most brilliant English-language writers of the twe
14、ntieth century. Plot“Araby“ opens on North Richmond street in Dublin, where “an uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground.“ The narrator, who remains unnamed throughout the story, lives with his aunt and uncle. He describes his block, th
15、en discusses the former tenant who lived in his house: a priest who recently died in the back room. This priest has a library that attracts the young narrator, and he is particularly interested in three titles: a Sir Walter Scott romance, a religious tract, and a police agents memoirs. The narrator
16、talks about being a part of the group of boys who play in the street. He then introduces Mangans sister, a girl who captivates his imagination even though he rarely, if ever, speaks with her. He does stare at her from his window and follow her on the street, however, often thinking of her “even in places the most hostile to romance.“ While in the marketplace on Saturday nights, for example, he uses her image to guide him through the thronging crowd who yell their sales pitches and
