Araby: an Outline Commentary
Araby: An Outline Commentary
‘The Sisters’ and ‘An Encounter’ are about the same length. ‘Araby’ is roughly a hundred lines shorter than these. There is a progression in the three stories. The boy in ‘The Sisters’ is a passive witness, limited in his capacity to act by the weight of the adults about him. The boy of ‘An Encounter’ rebels against this oppression but his reward is the menace of a bizarre and abnormal adult. The boy in ‘Araby’ strives both to act and to realize an actual affective relationship but suffers frustration, a thwarting that results both from the burden of adult control and his own recognition of the falseness of his aims. In short, ‘Araby’ is busy and crowded with people although these come and go in a breath. The first mentioned character, the dead priest, lingers more than most. He was the former tenant of the house that the boy now lives in with his aunt and uncle. The priest left behind books that influence the boy and a rusty bicycle pump. The latter is found in a backyard that contains an apple tree, a suggestion of an edenic world in a story laden with spiritual and churchly trappings. The bicycle pump, says Tindall, commenting on its appearance in the Circe section of Ulysses, “probably means spiritual inflation.” There are equally strong references to the mercantile. We learn, for example, that the priest left his money to charitable institutions and left to his sisters his furniture. The three books seem strange ones for a priest: a novel by Scott, memoirs of Vidocq and a devotional treatise. The latter may be an orthodox, if mediocre, work or it may be the work of an anti-Catholic writer whose last name is Seller, a fitting name for this story where the mercantile theme is so strong. The background of the boys who are the central figures of these first three stories is interestingly similar although different in the details. The boy of ‘An Encounter’ has no background except as a student but all the boys, whatever their
‘The Sisters’ and ‘An Encounter’ are about the same length. ‘Araby’ is roughly a hundred lines shorter than these. There is a progression in the three stories. The boy in ‘The Sisters’ is a passive witness, limited in his capacity to act by the weight of the adults about him. The boy of ‘An Encounter’ rebels against this oppression but his reward is the menace of a bizarre and abnormal adult. The boy in ‘Araby’ strives both to act and to realize an actual affective relationship but suffers frustration, a thwarting that results both from the burden of adult control and his own recognition of the falseness of his aims. In short, ‘Araby’ is busy and crowded with people although these come and go in a breath. The first mentioned character, the dead priest, lingers more than most. He was the former tenant of the house that the boy now lives in with his aunt and uncle. The priest left behind books that influence the boy and a rusty bicycle pump. The latter is found in a backyard that contains an apple tree, a suggestion of an edenic world in a story laden with spiritual and churchly trappings. The bicycle pump, says Tindall, commenting on its appearance in the Circe section of Ulysses, “probably means spiritual inflation.” There are equally strong references to the mercantile. We learn, for example, that the priest left his money to charitable institutions and left to his sisters his furniture. The three books seem strange ones for a priest: a novel by Scott, memoirs of Vidocq and a devotional treatise. The latter may be an orthodox, if mediocre, work or it may be the work of an anti-Catholic writer whose last name is Seller, a fitting name for this story where the mercantile theme is so strong. The background of the boys who are the central figures of these first three stories is interestingly similar although different in the details. The boy of ‘An Encounter’ has no background except as a student but all the boys, whatever their