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Araby

Decent Essays

Joyce’s Araby begins as a story about a young boy and his first love, his neighbor referred to in the story as Mangan's sister. However, the young boy soon turns his innocent love and curiosity into a much more intense desire, transforming this female and his journey to the bazaar into something much more intense and lustful. From the beginning, Joyce paints a picture of the neighborhood in which the boy lives as very dark and cold. Even the rooms within his house are described as unfriendly, "Air, musty from having long been enclosed, hung in all the rooms, and the waste room behind the kitchen was littered with old and useless papers.” The young boy sees all of this unpleasant setting around him, and …show more content…

Attending the bazaar and getting her a gift is simply an extension of his obsession and desire for this girl. Now, he has something specific to focus on and look to in their relationship. Immediately after he tells her how he will buy her a gift, his thoughts turn to “What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after the evening! I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days. I chafed against work of school.” Again, the boy has no focus or use for anything else going on in his life other than being involved with his love.
In comparing this to Susan Minot’s Lust, we see many similarities in that both main characters of the stories have desire and intense wanting, but they are different in form. Minot uses many small, short encounters and stories to portray the main character’s life and emotions. Similar to Araby, the settings and atmosphere in which the young girl’s life takes place is very negative and unfriendly. Just from the first paragraph describing one of her boys, “In his illegal car we drove to the reservoir, radio blaring, talking fast, fast, fast. He got kicked out sophomore year,” we see that the people she is associating with and the settings are not very positive. Similar Mangan’s sister in Araby, the only positive light and desire the main character has are interactions with boys and boyfriends, but all seem to only last for a very brief time. The girl’s desire is more mature and sexually

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