Araby

James Joyce

Lesson Outline

I. Motivation

 Movie Preview: Araby’s Trailer

II. Literary Theories

 Mimetic
 Expressionisn
 Psychoanalytic Theory

III. Discussion Proper

 Background of the Author

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an
Irish novelist, short story writer, and poet. He contributed to the modernist avant-
garde and is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the 20th
century.

 Type of Work
a. Dubliners
b. Ullysses

 Historical Background of Dublin

In 837, sixty Viking longships attacked churches round the Poddle and Liffey
estuary, and the invaders made a permanent settlement in 841. Dublin was the
Viking world’s largest city and traded from Iceland to Constantinople. The first
 genuine ruler of all Ireland - High King, Brian Boru - was rebelled against by
Dublin Vikings and the Leinster Irish. With the aid of Vikings, Brian crushed
his foes, then was himself slain, in an epic battle at Clontarf in 1014. The
Vikings adopted Christianity and founded Christ Church Cathedral. In 1169,
the deposed Irish King MacMurrough sought help from south-west Wales
Normans who, under their leader Richard FitzGilbert de Clare (Strongbow),
seized Dublin.

 Elements of the Story

a. Setting
Dublin
b. Characters
The Boy ( Narrator, James Joyce himself)
Uncle
Mangan
Mangan’s sister
Auntie

c. Plot
Exposition- The setting is in winter by the end of North Richmond Street
and that community in Dublin, Ireland. The main character is the narrator,
the boy who is smitten by a girl he saw. The boy lives with his uncle and
aunt, as tenant in a house where a priest died. "North Richmond Street,
being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian
Brothers' School set the boys free. An uninhabited house of two storeys
stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground. "

Rising Action- The boy is at his house and he imagines a conversation

with Magan's sister, the girl he has a crush on. He acts as if she is there with
him. He asks his uncle to take him to the Araby bazaar. He wants to buy a
gift for the girl because she dropped a hint. " I did not know whether I would
 ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my
confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures
were like fingers running upon the wires."

Climax- The boy is at the bazaar in South Dublin where he is at the

shop. He tries to buy something for the girl but the women in the shop won't
give him an help and won't pay attention to him. He realizes that he must of
imagined everything and the girl probably did not even like him. "Observing
me, the young lady came over and asked me did I wish to buy anything. The
tone of her voice was not encouraging; she seemed to have spoken to me out
of a sense of duty. I looked humbly at the great jars that stood like eastern
guards at either side of the dark entrance to the stall and murmured."

Falling Action- The boy leaves the bazaar in South Dublin after not
buying anything for the girl. "I lingered before her stall, though I knew
my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more
real. Then I turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the
bazaar. "

Denouement- The boy is mad and feels defeated because he was not able to
buy the girl a gift. He then decides not to do anything about his love and
gave up on it. "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven
and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger."

d. Point of View
First Person

IV. Significance/Relevance
 Theme
a. Coming of age
b. Losing innocence
 c. Repressive environment
d. the pain that often comes when one encounters love and dreams in reality
instead of its elevated form

 Morale/Lesson
In his brief but complex story Araby, James Joyce concentrates on character
rather than on plot to reveal the ironies within self-deception. On one level
Araby is a story of initiation, of a boy's quest for the ideal. The quest ends in failure
but results in an inner awareness and a first step into manhood. On another level the
story consists of a grown man's remembered experience, for a man who looks
back to a particular moment of intense meaning and insight tells the story in
retrospect. As such, the boy's experience is not restricted to youth's encounter
with first love. Rather, it is a portrayal of a continuing problem all through life
the incompatibility of the ideal, of the dream as one wishes it to be, with the
bleakness of reality. This double focus-the boy who first experiences, and the
man who has not forgotten provides for the rendering of a story of first love told
by a narrator who, with his wider, adult vision, can employ the sophisticated use
of irony and symbolic imagery necessary to reveal the story's meaning. The story
opens with a description of North Richmond Street, a blind, cold ... .. silent street
where the houses gazed at one an-other with brown imperturbable faces.. The
former tenant, a priest, died in the back room of the house, and his legacy-
several old yellowed books, which the boy enjoys leafing through because they
are old, and a bicycle pump rusting in the back yard-become symbols of the
intellectual and religious vitality of the past. Every morning before school the boy
lies on the floor in the front parlor peeking out through a crack in the blind of the
door, watching and waiting for the girl next door to emerge from her house and walk
to school. He is shy and still boyish. He follows her, walks silently past, not
daring to speak, overcome with a confused sense..
V. Evaluation
 Essay; the students will imagine that they are the narrator in the story and what
will they do in that situation.

REFRENCES
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araby_(short_story)
 https://www.biography.com/people/james-joyce-9358676
 https://www.inyourpocket.com/dublin/Dublin-A-Short-History_70271f
 https://prezi.com/q-55buetxq0m/araby-plot-chart/