James Joyces Araby - The Lonely Quest in Araby Essay -- Joyce Dubline

The Lonely Quest in Araby universality of experience makes James Joyces Araby interesting, readers respond instinctively to an experience that could have been their own. It is fate of the instinctual nature of man to long for what he feels is the lost spiritism of his world. In all ages man has believed that it is possible to search for and find a talisman, which, if brought back, pass on return this lost spirituality. The development of theme in Araby resembles the myth of the by-line for a holy talisman. In Araby, Joyce works from a visionary way of life of artistic creation-a phrase used by psychiatrist Carl Jung to account the, visionary kind of literary creation that derives its material from the hinterland of mans mind-that suggests the abysm of time sepa-rating us from prehuman ages, or evokes a superhuman world of con-trasting bring down and darkness. It is a early experience, which sur-passes mans dread and to which he is therefore in risk of succumbing. 1 Assur edly this describes Joyces handling of the material of Araby. The quest itself and its consequences surpass the understanding of the young protagonist of the story. He can only feel that he undergoes the experience of the quest and naturally is con-fused, and at the storys conclusion, when he fails, he is hagridden and angered. His contrasting world of light and darkness contains both the lost spirituality and the dream of restoring it. Because our own worlds contain these contrasts we also feel, even though the primordial experience surpasses our understanding, too. It is true, as a writer reminds us, that no matter the work, Joyce of all time views the order and disorder of the world in terms of the Catholic faith... ...world of northerly Richmond Street. Here, instead of Eastern enchant-ment, are thin stalls for purchase and selling flimsy wares. His grailhas turned out to be only flimsy tea sets covered with artificial flow-ers. As the upper hall becomes solely dark, the b oy realizes thathis quest has ended. Gazing upward, he sees the vanity of imagininghe can carry a chalice through a dark throng of foes. 1 Carl G. Jung, upstart Man in Search of a Soid. trans. W. S. Dell and CaryF. Baynes (New York, 1933), pp. 156-157. 2 William Bysshe Stein, Joyces Araby paradise Lost, Perspective, X11,No. 4 (Spring 1962), 215. 3 From Letters of James Joyce, Vol. II, ed. Richard Ellmarm (New York,1966), p. 134. 4 James Joyce, Stephen sub (New York, 1944), pp. 210-211. 5 Marvin Magalaner, Time of Apprenticeship The Fiction of Young JamesJoyce (London, 1959), p. 87.