Symbolism in Araby

 Symbolism in Araby

The symbolism Joyce includes also helps readers to fully understand all of the story's complexities. The former tenant of the narrator's house, the Catholic priest, could be said to represent the entire Catholic church. By extension, the books left in his room—which include nonreligious and non-Catholic reading—represent a feeling of ambiguity toward religion in general and Catholicism in particular.The bazaar, Araby, represents the East—a part of the world that is exotic and mysterious to the Irish boy.It could also represent commercialism, since it is really just a fundraiser used to get people to spend money on the church. Mrs. Mercer, the pawnbroker's widow, represents the uncle's debt and irresponsibility; she too could represent greed and materialism. To the narrator, Mangan's sister is a symbol of purity and feminine perfection.These qualities are often associated with the Virgin Mary , who also symbolizes the Catholic church. While the boy is at Araby,the various, and often contrasting, meanings of these symbols converge to produce his epiphany.

Much of the symbolism in the work revolves around Catholicism. One example of symbolism is the Catholic priest, who could be said, given the overall ambivalence toward the Catholic Church in the work,could be said to represent the entire Church.The bazaar represents exoticism in the rather parochial world of Dublin, and the boy's trip there is somewhat of a pilgrimage. Mangan's sister is an example of chasteness and femininity, traits associated with the Virgin Mary . On the other hand, both the pawnbroker's widow and Araby itself might be read as representative of crass commercialism and materialism, with Araby being a notably shallow form of it. 

BLINDNESS

The story uses the word “blind” to draw attention to the narrator’s naiveté and isolation. He begins by describing the dead-end street where the narrator lives as “blind” with the narrator’s house being a lone abandoned house at the blind end, set off from the other houses. This isolated house foreshadows the narrator’s later isolation from his friends, as he loses interest in playing with them and watches them play in the street from the upstairs window. The narrator also recounts watching for Mangan’s sister from the front parlor, with the blind pulled down so she cannot see him. The narrator is figuratively blinded by his infatuation with Mangan’s sister. He loses sight of everything else in his life, namely his studies and his friends, because he is so busy fantasizing about her.The word “blind” also emphasizes the anonymous nature of the characters in the text,as only two of them are given names (Mangan and Mrs. Mercer).The lack of identity and physical description of most of the characters leaves them anonymous and forces the reader to focus on the other details given in the text, most of them related to the setting. It also allows the reader to alter the narrator’s identity – perhaps in him they see themselves,or James Joyce,as many critics have called this is a semi-autobiographical work.

LIGHT AND DARKNESS

The story uses a great deal of light and darkness in its descriptions. The story begins in the dark, with the “short days of winter” where the boys played in the “dark muddy lanes behind the houses.” And then the text follows the boys back to the street where the light from windows now illuminates the area.Darkness also comes into play in understanding the narrator’s epiphany . Normally light represents enlightenment or knowledge, but at the end of the story the narrator’s newfound knowledge instead coincides with darkness. As the lights are turned off at the bazaar the narrator stares up into the darkness and realizes the harsh truth about his feelings for Mangan’s sister and his vain motives for coming to the market. In this case, his new knowledge is of a dark and depressing nature, as his epiphany has revealed to him the darkness in himself (his vanity) and in the larger world, which does not offer the sort of romantic escapes he had believed.

BROWN

The color brown is used repeatedly to symbolize the dullness of everyday Dublin. The houses are brown, and even Mangan’s sister is described as a “brown-clad figure” perhaps indicating that it was common to dress in brown clothes. Brown is used to emphasize how unexciting and oppressive Dublin is for the narrator in every way, both visually as well as in the everyday occurrences.