JamesJoyceAraby人物及背景分析.docx

1、JamesJoyceAraby人物及背景分析James-Joyce-Araby-人物及背景分析ArabyBackgrounds 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 a

2、ttends) and convent schools run by nuns (like 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 M

3、an . In many ways, Catholicism, particularly 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 su

4、mptuous vestments and altar decorations. On the other hand, the Churchs official attitude confronted with the tawdriness of a shopgirls flirtation at the bazaar, he abruptly dismisses all his feelings as mere vanity.Introduction of the story and the authorAraby is one of fifteen short stories that t

5、ogether 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. Its stories are arranged in an order reflecting the development of a

6、 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 perspective of a boy just on the verge of adolescence. The story takes it

7、s 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. Modernist works often include characters who are spiritually lost and the

8、mes 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 instead of quotation marks to indicate that a character is speaking. Joyce

9、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 fought very hard with the editors to keep the stories the way he had wr

10、itten 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 twentieth century. PlotAraby opens on North Richmond street in Dublin, w

11、here 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, then discusses the former tenant who lived in his house: a priest who recen

12、tly 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 talks about being a part of the group of boys who play in the street. He

13、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 ni

14、ghts, for example, he uses her image to guide him through the thronging crowd who yell their sales pitches and sing patriotic Irish ballads. He becomes misty-eyed just at the thought of her and retreats to the priests dark room in order to deprive himself of other senses and think only of her. Final

15、ly, Mangans sister speaks to him. She asks if he will be attending a church-sponsored fair that is coming soon to Dublin-a bazaar called Araby. He is tongue-tied and cannot answer, but when she tells him that she cannot go because of a retreat that week in her convent, he promises to go and bring he

16、r a gift from the bazaar. From then on he can only think of the time when he will be at the fair; he is haunted by the syllables of the word Araby. On the night he is supposed to attend the fair, his uncle is late returning home and he must wait to get money from him. He gets very anxious, and his a

17、unt tells him that he may have to miss the bazaar, but his uncle does come home, apologetic that he had forgotten. After asking the boy if he knows a poem entitled The Arabs Farewell to His Steed, the uncle bids the boy farewell. The boy takes a coin from his uncle and catches a train to the fair. A

18、raby is closing down as he arrives and he timidly walks through the center of the bazaar. As he looks at the few stalls that are still open, he overhears a conversation between an English shop-girl and two young men. Their talk is nothing but idle gossip. The shop-girl pauses reluctantly to ask the

19、boy if he wishes to buy anything, but he declines. As he walks slowly out of the hall amid the darkening of the lights, he thinks that he is a creature driven and derided by vanity and his eyes burned with anguish and anger. CharactersNarrator: The narrator of this story is a young, sensitive boy wh

20、o confuses a romantic crush and religious enthusiasm. All of the conflict in this story happens inside his mind. It is unlikely that the object of his crush, Mangans sister, is aware of his feelings for her, nor is anybody else in this boys small world. Because the boys thoughts only reveal a part o

21、f the story, a careful reader must put together clues that the author gives. For example, the narrator mentions that the former tenant of the house he shares with his aunt and uncle was a priest, a representative of the Catholic church, who left behind three books which became important to the narra

22、tor. One is a romantic adventure by Sir Walter Scott; one is a religious pamphlet written by a Protestant; and the third is the exciting memoirs of a French policeman and master of disguise. These three books are not what a person would expect a Catholic priest to have in his library. So if this pri

23、est has non-religious literature in his library, then how devout can an average church-goer be expected to be? This turns out to be the case for the narrator, who confuses religious idealism with romance. The boy confuses the religious and secular worlds when he describes himself at the market with

24、his aunt. He bears the chalice-the Communion cup-through a throng of foes. He also describes Mangans sister in terms often associated with the Virgin Mary. For the narrator, then, an ordinary grocery-shopping trip becomes a religious crusade, and a pretty girl down the street becomes a substitute fo

25、r the Mother of God. The boy fuses together religious devotion for the Virgin Mary with his own romantic longing. Joyce is famous for creating characters who undergo an epiphany-a sudden moment of insight-and the narrator of Araby is one of his best examples. At the end of the story, the boy overhea

26、rs a trite conversation between an English girl working at the bazaar and two young men, and he suddenly realizes that he has been confusing things. It dawns on him that the bazaar, which he thought would be so exotic and exciting, is really only a commercialized place to buy things. Furthermore, he

27、 now realizes that Mangans sister is just a girl who will not care whether he fulfills his promise to buy her something at the bazaar. His conversation with Mangans sister, during which he promised he would buy her something, was really only small talk-as meaningless as the one between the English g

28、irl and her companions. He leaves Araby feeling ashamed and upset. This epiphany signals a change in the narrator-from an innocent, idealistic boy to an adolescent dealing with harsh realities. Mangans Sister: Mangan is one of the narrators chums who lives down the street. His older sister becomes t

29、he object of the narrators schoolboy crush. Mangans sister has no idea how the narrator feels about her, however, so when they discuss Araby, the bazaar coming to town, she is only being polite and friendly. She says she would like to go to the bazaar but cannot because she has to attend a school re

30、treat that weekend. The narrator promises to buy her something at the bazaar if he goes, but it is unlikely that she takes this promise seriously. While on the one hand the narrator describes her romantically, he also describes her in reverential terms which call to mind the Virgin Mary. This dual i

31、mage description of Mangans sister represents the religious and romantic confusion of the narrator. Mangan: Mangan is the same age and in the same class at the Christian Brothers school as the narrator, and so he and the narrator often play together after school. His older sister is the object of th

32、e narrators confused feelings. Narrators Aunt: The narrators aunt, who is a mother figure in the story, takes the narrator with her to do the marketing. When it seems as though the uncle has forgotten his promise to the narrator that he could go to the bazaar, she warns the boy that he may have to put off the bazaar for this night of Our Lord. While this statement makes her seem strict in a religious sense, she also exhibits empathy for the boys plight. She pleads his case when the uncle forgets about the boys plans to go to Araby. Narrators Uncle: The narrators uncle seems