Compare And Contrast The Rocking Horse Winner And Araby

On the Quest for Love

In James Joyce’s story “Araby” from Dubliners, a young Irish boy in Dublin is followed through his endeavors to court a young girl and his trials along the way. In D.H. Lawrence’s story “The Rocking Horse Winner,” a young boy named Paul contemplates wealth and respect to earn the ardent affection of his mother. Both “Araby” and “The Rocking Horse Winner” employ a storyline based on romanticism from the medieval period, in which a juvenile went out on a quest to find something for his beloved and return it. However, Joyce and Lawrence derange this romantic writing style and attempt to tie it in with the disillusioned modernist ideal by incorporating a common theme of despair. Through the telling of a demented romance
In “The Rocking Horse Winner,” Paul consistently wins money from betting, with his pursuit of wealth lacking interference. However, his conquest becomes interrupted when Uncle Oscar asks Paul what he wants to do with the money. When Oscar asks “but what are you going to do with your money” and Paul responds that he is going to give it to his mother, the house starts ”’whispering’ worse than ever.” The personification of the house in the context of whispering shows that the house knows about the quest for materialistic wealth and love Paul is on and how the house tries to get Paul to recognize what he is doing. When the house shows this through stronger whispering, Paul’s path to love and wealth dwindles greatly and he begins to lose money, which leads his mother to cry for more money, to which only Paul could respond. In “Araby,” the narrator explicitly dreams about his conquest, revealing that “innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that evening”. His vision becomes interrupted however when the aunt questions his purpose while gossipping with her friend, hoping “it was not some Freemason affair” and furthermore mentioning that the narrator may need to “put off [his bazaar for this night”. This questioning, which he also got from his uncle, allows for
When the narrator of “Araby” gets to the fair, he sees the fair as it truly is; a wasteland that gives off an illustrious illusion. Upon this realization, he remarks that he finds himself “a creature driven and derided by vanity.” This reveals how he can never truly get rid of the despair that motivates his life in Dublin, therefore sticking him in a disarrayed Irish life for what could be forever. His attempts to entrance himself into a different lifestyle ended up failing, much like Paul. Paul tried to claim his mother’s love through betting, even professing his love to her by telling her “do you think I’m lucky, Mother?” as he was on his deathbed. Through luck, Paul made his mother happy through material wealth, but this theme of wealth led to his untimely death and the loss of status for his family. Paul and the narrator of “Araby” discover themes of despair and acceptance through their pursuit alongside a disillusioned world. However, as the characters continued throughout their quests, they became part of a disillusioned world rather than simply seeing the disarray. Joyce and Lawrence are ultimately able to represent modernism through the connection their characters share with disillusionment and in effect, show the condemnation that lies within