Star Ann Smith
English 101
A Truth of the Human Spirit

The fantasy of escape is something that has excited and interested people in uncomfortable situations for thousands of years. Uncontrollable forces like family, the church and politics can make you feel like you are trapped within a place where growing intellectually, spirtually and emotionally may seem smootherd or unattainable. The human spirit, however, still craves greater knowledge and spirtual awareness. In James Joyce's collection of short storys known as the Dubliners, one of which is called "Araby", we are witnesses to a boys fall from grace. The boys efforts were to no avail but, through the failure of his journey, we recognize through this allegory, that the human spirit's loss of hope comes the loss of ambition tward the pursuit of enlightenment.

Our first allegory comes from his surroundings being used a description for that trapped feeling he's having. " being blind, it was a quiet street except at the hour the Christian brothers school set the boys free." (430) North Richmond street is described as a wasteland of the spirit. A wasteland that the boy feels trapped in, but not yet hopeless to escape. Joyce uses words like blind and uninhabited to illustrate Dublin and refers to the people of Dublin as shadows. As discouraging as his surroundings are we are reminded of the boys innocence and naiveness with joyce's use of the words to describe the children's skin as "glowing". In comparison to the shadows used to describe the adults of Dublin, the boys are portrayed as being more alive, almost as if their souls are not yet been tainted by disappointment and hopeless of the other residents. The boy lives with his aunt and uncle, who seem just as paralyzed intellectually, spiritually and emotionally as the rest of the people in Dublin.

The Allegory continues as he enters his possible escape: a girl that lives in his neighborhood, who we only know named as Magnan's sister. She is the one person in his surroundings that he viewed as an completely different way than anyone else on Richmond street. The boy is obviously in love with her but, seems to be completely unaware of what he's feeling. Magnans sister, who Joyce symbolically names after a 19th century poet who was known for his romantic and sentimental poems, is the boys vision of what is true and pure in this world. The boy views Magnans sister as an Angelic figure, possibly due to being repressed under the Catholic Churches influence. " I stood by the railing looking up at her-her figure defined by the light from the half open door." (430) He confuses his infatuation and romantic feelings for the neighbor girl with his experiences he had at church.

Magnan's sister is not the only thing the boy mistakes as religious. He views his promise to her as a sacred quest just as important as the holy grail itself! He sees the buzaarr as a place of wonder and magic but then, realizes it is a scandalous place revolving around sexuality and materialism. This epiphany, occurs at the end of the story when the buzzaar is closing and the truth about this magical place was found out to be a fraud. It is at that moment he realizes that his concept of love is an illusion based off his sexual attraction to Magnan's sister and his confusion with religion, rather than the sacred quest he had deceived himself in to believing. " I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger." (434) Most believe that the allegory ends with this loss of hope being explained in his inability to present a gift to the object of his affection, but how is this one experience going to affect the rest of his life?

As we traveled with this boy on his journey of self realization we realize, even though he repeatedly states that he does not understand what he's feeling, we, as readers, get the impression of knowing more than the narrator does about himself and his situation, as if the narrator has not grown as a person in the many years since his childhood. He is now stuck as one of those unenlightened "shadows", doomed to settle for mediocrity and living with that trapped feeling for the rest of his life. We witness the boys loss of hope through the failure of his quest but, we also witnessed the loss of his ambition toward the pursuit of enlightenment.