Lauren Cockburn
Prof. Samuelson
English 1302
February 13, 2004
Emergence
The sun stops rising. The moon stops setting. Everything stands in shadow except for the person one loves, the goal one seeks, the discovery one endeavors to reveal. James Joyce�s �Araby� unites the call of life and love with the narrative of a boy living on �a quiet street� (462). Infusing meaning into the common images of twilight, darkness, and kitchen light, Joyce vividly paints the scenes of Araby on a background of light and dark and brilliance and shadow. He portrays the turning point of the boy from child to man, from first love to final revelation by the subtle changes in the light, weaving in the continually reenacted story of adolescence and life.
Joyce presents the boy in �Araby� standing relishing the darkness of energetic boyhood, while peering into the soft, defining light encompassing manhood. Joyce writes, �The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses . . . to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens . . . to the dark odorous stables� (463). The boy does not continue in the dark, but is pulled to the light in the door. The boy says, �We left our shadow and . . . she was waiting for us, her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door,� and �I stood by the railings looking at her� (463). There she, his object of worship, stands above him with the light playing on her form as the herald of his coming manhood and the goal of his heart. Caressingly, Joyce uses the light to draw the boy out of childhood as well as concentrate his ardor on the girl. The boy turns the dark ordinary street corner into the exotic world of Araby. Beautifully, Joyce reveals the start of the boy�s metamorphosis from crouching in the shadow of innocence to dreaming in the light of first love.
Drawing a comparison between the small and insignificant street lamps that raise their dim fire to the majestic violet sky above, Joyce shows the boy�s soul flooded with newfound love and striving to raise its light to that of the girl�s (463). The violet sky symbolizes the boy holding his love as holy and royal. Joyce writes that the boy �imagined that I bore my chalice [the girl�s image] safely through� (463). The boy's eyes are consumed with nothing else except the light, which �caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing� (464). Love overtakes the boy and wraps him in a cocoon filled with magical dreams. Joyce shows childhood drop behind the boy as the light bares the boy�s emotions and brings him to the point that he may not turn back from loving.
Cockburn 2
Joyce shows the boy searching to give his beloved something from Araby in order to win her love. Boarding a dark train, the boy finds that �all the stalls were closed and the greater part of the hall was in darkness� (466). The boy is alone in a quest to find a fitting tribute. Plunged into total darkness and filled with the utmost humiliation and anger, the boy is thrown back into the unwanted darkness of naivety and solitude. He says, �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� (466). Joyce shows the boy deserted and hidden from the shelter of the girl�s light, devoid of comfort and love. The boy has emerged from his cocoon of fantasy still unable to fly and quivering with the pain of birth. He momentarily stands back in the dark as Joyce now uses the empty, lightless Araby to symbolize the boy-turned-man�s bleeding, heartbroken understanding.
Drawn from boyhood, born through adolescence, shown manhood, the unnamed boy is delicately etched by Joyce into �Araby� with the clearest light and dimmest obscurity. Along with the boy, we hear the call of the beautiful girl from the doorway, beckoning the boy to leave childhood behind. We envision the light falling around her form, and we imagine the darkness that then hides her from the boy. The boy was right to murmur, �O love! O love!� (464). We too whisper, �O love! O love!� as we pass through the initiation into adulthood (464). Joyce skillfully shows that to passionately pursue a goal is to stand in the light, while losing sight of it is to leave a gaping dark hole that yearns to be satisfied. Gazing into the light, we enter the world of Araby striving to catch hold of a first love, an elusive goal, a distant finish line.