The Disillusionment from the Escape

The Disillusionment from the Escape

Have you ever tried to run away from the bitter reality? I suppose most of us have. This question can be an important clue to understand the short story of James Joyce, ‘Araby’. At the first sight ‘Araby’ seems like a sad first love story of an innocent boy who tried to buy something fancy to his love at the oriental bazaar ‘Araby’. However, regarding the situation of the author at his time and the symbols of the story, we can find a new perspective that James Joyce wanted to show us the disillusionment of the escape from the reality.

        The life of James Joyce is very similar to the story of the boy. First of all, the settings of the story are very similar, or even the same with the places of James Joyce’s childhood. For example, the North Richmond Street where the boy lived is the same street where the author lived, and the school of the boy, Christian Brothers' School, is the one where James Joyce attended to. Not only the settings, but also the experiences of the author in Dublin are very similar to the story. The boy leaves his boring, secular village to Araby, the dreamy bazaar, where he thought he could get closer to his fantasy for the Mangan’s sister. However, his fantasy wasn’t there and the boy goes through the disillusionment. It reminds us the disillusionment of James Joyce himself from Dublin. James Joyce wanted to get out of the devastated situations in Dublin. Even though he tried to get out of the reality with the efforts such as entrance into university or religion, he couldn’t. For him, Dublin was too rotten already. Therefore, we can try to understand the story on another perspective, as a reflection of his own life with disillusionment in Dublin.

        For another clue, we can find some symbols that leads us to the disillusionment. As indicated above, the North Richmond Street is boring, gloomy, and secular reality such as Dublin at that time. The boy who dreams of an ideal, Mangan’s sister, can be a symbol of the people who feel sorry for their reality and search for the solution.  Mangan’s sister is the ultimate ideal who makes the boy to leave the reality to the place of hope, Araby. However, Araby, where the boy fantasized, was not a paradise or a place for ‘dream come true.’ It was an another reality of the same world. The young lady and two gentlemen show the secularity through the secular conversations about ‘lies’, and the darkness of the building gives us the devastated image of Araby. Based on these symbols, we can interpret the boy’s anger of the last scene as the disillusionment of the fantasized utopia, Araby.