A Boy's Spiritual Journey

Life involves struggles between religious and romantic ideas. People become overwhelmed with feelings especially at young ages that they are unable to realize or make of any sense. The struggle in James Joyce’s “Araby” revolves between a confused boy’s religious interest and romantic devotion.

The narrator begins the story describing the street in which he resides with an ominous feeling. He sees, through blind eyes, what we have all experienced: the cold, hard reality of life. Through the eyes of the young narrator, life seems gloomy in the descriptions that portray his surroundings that Joyce uses throughout the story. The silent street where the boys play is described as being dark, with dark homes, dark muddy lanes, dark dripping gardens, dark odorous stables and odours arising from ash pits.

The first mention of light into this boy’s existence is when the light of the half-opened door defines Mangan sister’s figure. She is the light that he has yet to experience. She is representative of what he now searches to find. We can all relate to the young man’s experience; we idealize someone in our images, becoming obsessed with those experiences and soon everyday life becomes consumed with the images and thoughts of this one person. “Yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood ” (Sipiora 38). While on a trip to the market with his aunt, he imagines on this trip with the help of her image, that he carries a trophy safely through a crowd of enemies.

“Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand” (Sipiora 39). The words that Joyce uses to describe the way he feels of her, confused adoration, perfectly describes this young man’s thoughts. He is puzzled as to whether his feelings are of love, admiration, idolization, or even worship. This story has strong underlying religious tones. As the boy goes to the back drawing room where the former owner (a priest) died, it almost seems like an altar. In the drawing room where the boy masturbates, it seems that Joyce wanted to describe this scene as if the boy were merely doing a prayer of worship. “All my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: `O love! O love!' many times” (Sipiora 39). Joyce makes us wonder as if the boy is unable to differentiate between sexual and religious feelings.

Once Mangan’s sister spoke to him about the upcoming bazaar and his promise to bring back some trinket for her, he is overwhelmed with images of her through the endless days until the bazaar. The thoughts of the upcoming bazaar possess his schoolwork, and then everyday life soon became child’s play. After much delay, the night of the bazaar arrives and his mission was about to begin. Once his drunken uncle arrived late, and with time pressing, he was finally on his way to the bazaar. He endured another delay in his mission with the train leaving the train station. He was alone in this special train due to the porters turning away a crowd at the station that wanted to board, as if this trip he needed to go alone.

At last, he arrives at the sign displaying the magical name. He rushes around looking for a sixpenny entrance but giving up patience and paying instead a shilling. Here like before in his life was darkness that surrounded the hall but also a silence like a church after service. As he went up to one of the stalls he found it hard to remember his purpose of coming to this bazaar in the first place. While he was standing in the middle of the hall, with one side of him in the light and the other side in darkness, a sudden realization occurred to him; he saw himself as he gazed to the darker side as a creature driven and derided by vanity, someone who took pride in themselves with a self-importance and egotism. He felt sorrow that he acted this way.

The ending finally reconciles the religious undertone throughout this story. My interpretation of this story was that the darkness that was lurking around everywhere was evil and temptation and that the light was salvation and reference to God. In the beginning of the story the boys life Joyce uses references of the “dark” to show the boys blindness to the reality of life’s temptations. His confusion with thinking Magan’s sister is the “light” causes him to misjudge his feelings both sexual and religious. “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger” (Sipiora 41). The boy was blind to the temptations of the world but now he can see clearly.

Sipiora, Phillip. “Araby.” Reading and Writing about Literature. Pearson Education, Inc, 2002. 38-41.

The Consequences of His Past - A look at Babylon Revisited

We always pay for the consequences of our actions even though we often do not realize when they will be, or what the price may be. Even a year and a half later after the stock market boom, Charlie is still confronting his consequences head on. Charlies’ constant struggle with alcoholism has made a profound effect on his personal life, relationship with his family, and his strive to regain custody of his daughter. It is evident with his trip to Paris that Charlie is still battling alcoholism by first visiting an old refuge, the Ritz bar.

During the 1920’s, the Ritz bar was a trendy hot spot, where Charlie and his old drinking friends consorted together. At the bar while reminiscing of old times with the bartender, Alix, Charlie jots down his in-laws address on a note that he leaves for his old drinking friend Duncan Schaeffer. Whether this was an unconscious or conscious decision on Charlie’s part, it shows that he is still reluctant to let go of his past. Even Charlie’s’ philosophy of just having one drink a day to keep drinking in proportion makes you question his ability to continue to keep it under control. Fitzgerald wrote the story in a way that shows Charlie’s detachment with reality. While Charlie is engaged in a conversation his mind will wander to distant memories, always seeming to relate to his experiences associated with alcohol. His past is beginning to consume his purpose for coming to Paris, to regain connection with his family.

Charlie so desperately wants to regain custody of his 9-year-old daughter, Honoria, whom he has not seen since he was in the sanitarium. When Alix, the bartender, cried out “Oh-h! You have a little girl?” it was evident that Charlie did not speak about his daughter during any of his frequent visits in his drunken days (Sipiora 7). When Charlie first sees his daughter, she is very enthusiastic about their reencounter. One can see Charlie’s regret in regards to missing time with his daughter in his statement to her. “I want to get to know you,” he said gravely. “First let me introduce myself. My name is Charles J. Wales, of Prague” (Sipiora 9). While reclaiming his relationship with his daughter, Charlie also had to find a way to gain approval from his in-laws, Marion and Lincoln Peters.

During the first visit to the Peters’ home, Charlie mentions that his income now is bigger than when the stock market boomed. During conversation, he declared that his drinking only got out of hand during this boom. This begins the questioning of Charlie’s character, as to whether he will go back to his old days now that he has regained his fortune. There is a bitterness that the Peters’ hold against Charlie, for when he was throwing money around in his drunken days they were watching theirs and struggling to get by. When Charlie mentions his newfound philosophy on his drinking, Marion struggles to put aside her prejudice feelings. Just as his attempts to persuade the Peters to let Honoria go live with him were about to succeed, Duncan and Lorraine come crashing in. Charlie seems outraged on this intrusion in his life, yet he was the one that was ultimately responsible. If he had not left the letter for Duncan at the bar then Charlie and his daughter would be heading back to Prague for the start of their new life. Since he never released his drunken past, he has ruined for the time being any hopes to regain custody of his daughter in the eyes of Marion. As he came closer to the life that he wanted, Charlie began to realize his old drunken hangouts and friends no longer allured him

On a trip back to his hotel one night Charlie was walking by an old meeting place and popped his head inside, but immediately thought, “You have to be damn drunk” (Sipiora 8). Wishing that he had instead spent more time and money on the cheap restaurants versus the five course meals, he felt remorseful that he did not get a real opportunity to experience Paris. It is not a question whether Charlie was regretful of his past and his genuine interest in turning his life around but whether he could turn it around and release his past to do so. In the end, he is back to where he started, in the Ritz bar. Fitzgerald leaves us wondering if Charlie will be able to maintain his willingness to change or if he will resort back to his old ways since he failed in his attempt to gain back his life.

Sipiora, Phillip. “Babylon Revisited.” Reading and Writing about Literature. Pearson Education, Inc, 2002. 6-19.

Do we every truly know who we are?

Do we every truly know who we are? Life is a mystery that uncovers clues everyday. I can tell you a little of what I know so far. Twenty-six years ago, I started my journey in Stone Mountain, Georgia to where I recently ventured to a smaller town of Gray, Georgia with my husband of three years. You could say we have a big family, no children yet, but we do have five dogs and one lazy cat. We meet six years ago on the internet, if you can believe that. The forty-five minute drive that separated us became a true test of our love when we would sit in traffic on I-285 in rush hour to see each other. It was worth it though! Once married we decided to move closer to Milledgeville, so my husband could pursue his career opportunity and passion as an Outboard Marine Engine Technician. Currently as an insurance agent, I have been sucked into the abyss known as GEICO for the past three years. Some people define themselves with their careers, hobbies, social statues or even their families. I do not think that one given thing sums up who we are. Things I like to do can be reading, photography, antiquing, and sometimes-outdoor activities with my husband (if I am dragged along). Seriously, I do enjoy the outdoors, for different reasons than my husband though. He may enjoy sitting in a tree stand waiting for that big buck to come along, but I enjoy the calmness and escape from reality with a good book in the tree stand. Here is some irony for you. My earliest memory of “What I want to be when I grow up” was in the fifth grade. Math was my strongest subject and still is to this day. Therefore, I decided that I wanted to become an accountant. The worst job I could imagine in my eleven-year-old mind was teaching! Who in their right mind would want to put up with these bad kids everyday and were paid lousy! I thought teaching would be an unrewarding career due to the way we treated teachers. These thoughts only got worse the further I went in my education. Just these past few years has my opinion be changed. With more passion than I have felt for anything else in my life, teaching brings out an excitement and enthusiasm in me. How crazy is life that the one thing that I though I would die if I had to do, now I would die regretting never had the opportunity to do it. Even though this is just a taste of “Who I am”, everyday brings more exploration and gets me closer to the mystery of life.