Sonntag, 18. November 2007

Response on James Joyce’s Araby


Honestly I had did some research on the internet what the term epiphany means since I have not heard of it before. I have found that epiphany is “a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience” (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/epiphany).

All in all, this short story is about a boy who lives in a very poor neighbothood in Dublin. He falls in love with his friend’s sister and wants to buy her a present at the Araby market. But he arrives very late so that he recognized that most of the stalls are already closed. He is very disappointed of the baazar and went home.

Reading the story it appears to me that all conflict the narrator struggles with occurs inside his mind. At the the end of the story the nnarrotor transforms from an idealistic boy to an adolescents who does not see things like he did before but in a more realistic and rather disappointed manner: “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.”
Finally, I think that using the technique of epiphany in literature makes stories appear to be very close to real life. I have experienced some kind of epiphany myself. I thought I would be friends with somebody and than after an insignificant incident I suddenly realized that he was not a friend at all.

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