Short Story Analysis

A short story analysis might seem like a trivial thing to do, as it is not something most of us do on a regular basis. Yet, there is value in doing it. By looking deep into the literature, one can analyze elements such as the context, characters, plot, tools, and themes the author uses, and form one’s own interpretation of the text. It is a great exercise that helps one improve on how to support a claim or argument. While short story analysis is not something I would likely do outside of school, I very much enjoyed reading and analyzing James Joyce’s “Araby.” There are many improvements that I can make now in hindsight, and I am open to any criticism you may have, so don’t hold back. With that said, here is my analysis of “Araby.”

James Joyce’s “Araby” tells us the story of an unnamed little boy, the narrator, who experiences a very important change in his life. He starts out a regular boy describing his routine. He plays with his friends, and just general running around as a young boy is apt to do. After developing an interest in his neighbor’s sister. He goes through this whole ordeal to get her a gift but is unsuccessful. At the end of the story I feel is where he learns an important life lesson. Is James Joyce trying to tell us that growing up is a bad experience? At first impression it might seem like it, but upon further inspection I believe that James Joyce is teaching us about the ups and downs of regular life, through the perspective of the little boy. No matter how much we plan, pray, or wish for something to happen, somethings might never happen. I guess we can call it the death of a dream, the crush of love, or just a big disappointment. We may have some control, but no matter how much we try, somethings we cannot fully control. Which brings me to the purpose of this paper. I want to take a closer look at the tools James Joyce used to tell the story and how he used them, because it does a great job of bringing the theme of the story to life. In order to show this, I will examine the following aspects of the story; James Joyce’s use of tone, symbolism, and character development.

The tone is mainly the same all through the story. After introducing the narrator, Joyce immediately tells us about the previous tenant, a Priest, who has just passed away. Right off the bat he sets a somber mood by getting us to think about death. The rest of the paragraph is no different. For example, “Air, musty from having been long enclosed, hung in all the rooms, and the waste room behind the kitchen was littered with old useless papers.” (Joyce 1) Here we see a few words Joyce specifically chose to help set his intended tone. Musty air and old useless papers are not exactly setting a happy scene. Joyce writes in a dark, anxious mood. It sets up an image of stagnation, or even slight feelings of depression.

A small change of tone happens when he begins describing Mangan’s sister. Here Joyce writes in excitement and energy to bring the boy’s emotions for Mangan’s sister to life. When he describes looking at her through the window, we see that energy when he writes leaping and running. The narrator’s feelings are coming to life and it excites the tone of the story. He later describes a scene where the boy is in the room the priest died. That should bring back that somber mood we felt at the opening of the story, but the boy is happy thinking about the girl. This is proven a little later when Joyce writes, “Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance.” (Joyce 2) This is important because here, the narrator shows us that we do have control over some situations. We can be in a bad situation, as the boy being in a place “hostile to romance” yet despite the darkness, he has a small window of light. How we can interpret this is that we don’t have to be victims of our situation. By making the best of a bad situation, we can be in control.

Towards the end of the story, as the narrator’s plans are falling apart, Joyce returns to the same anxious tone he started the story with. In one particular situation, we have the following, “I felt the house in bad humour and walked slowly towards the school. The air was pitilessly raw and already my heart misgave me.” (Joyce 3) When I read “bad humour” and “pitilessly raw” it immediately brought me back to the opening scene of being uneasy or restless. This restlessness coming from the lack of control, is how Joyce gets the reader to feel the anxiousness one feels when we try to control something beyond our reach. Drawing from the Stoic philosophy, there are things we have influence over, and things we can’t influence. Worrying too much about what we cannot change will only cause worry and anxiety.

One of James Joyce’s most interesting use of symbolism in the story is his use of light. Early in the story, as we saw when we examined the tone, Joyce describes a scene of darkness. When the narrator begins to describe his interaction with Mangan’s sister, we finally see a light in all this darkness. “The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing.” (Joyce 2) The boy is seeing the light almost as a type of aura. It is a literal light, but it works great symbolically. It illuminates his world for a while. A light in the dark setting of the story. Once this symbol for light is established, it is one of the last things we see at the end of the story. Though we see the light extinguish. “I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. The upper part of the hall was now completely dark.” (Joyce 5) The lights went out literally in the boy’s surroundings, and I feel this is symbolic for the light described earlier also going out. He realized that no matter how much he wanted this, it wasn’t going to happen. Immediately after, another light is symbolically lit, “; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.” (Joyce5) Here we see a new flame or light come into play, but that of anger and sorrow. From the darkness, Joyce brought another light into effect to show the natural flow of emotions we as humans’ experience.

As far as character development goes, the narrator changed quite drastically from the opening of the story. Early in the story, the boy is shown playing with his friends, just being a regular kid. The first change he experiences is the feeling of fondness for Mangan’s sister. He seems almost euphoric, living in his own little world full of emotion. Once things start souring, we see him experience a bit of anger and impatience at the people holding him up. These feelings reach their peak at the end, when he is completely disillusioned and furious. Seeing these different transformations shows us how the narrator grows. We experience his emotions before and after his misfortune.

James Joyce’s use of tone and symbolism greatly impacted the telling of this story. From his use of tone, he managed to establish a baseline with the dark tone at the opening of the story. Then we saw and felt the excitement as the narrator’s life was illuminated by his emotions felt towards the girl. At the end, we went back to the dark anxious tone, and ascended a completely opposite way of feeling. These shifts in tone mirror the ups and downs of regular life. The naivety and innocence of the boy is on full display. Through the narrator’s point of view, we learned that as much as we try to control a certain situation, not everything is under our control. Sure, we can control our reaction to the situation, but there will always be outside influences that change things. In this case, everything worked against the little boy. The late visit by the lady and his uncle being late. At every point, the boy was ready to spring his plan to action, but no matter how ready he was, it was just not up to him. A painful introduction to one of life’s main lessons. There will always be disappointments. Your favorite team will lose the championship, your co-worker will get the promotion over you. Whatever it is, that’s the way of the world, occasionally things will go wrong. We just have to learn to accept it.