(No Offense to Christianity)
From a distance, James Joyce’s “Araby” might appear as a story in which Christian themes are blended with themes of love. After all, when the nameless narrator revisits “back drawing-room in which the priest had died”, a clear and powerful Christian theme, and preys to unknown subject – most likely to the God or to Mangan’s sister – “O love! O love!”, idea of love and Christianity merge in one place; the fact that Joyce does not clarify whether the subject of the prey is the God or Mangan’s sister might indicate that the author does not want to explicitly separate the theme of love and religion. However, on the other hand, the narrator tries to regard his love towards Mangan’s sister as “innumerable follies” which wastes his “waking and sleeping thoughts”, and even wishes “to annihilate the tedious intervening days”. Thus, he considers his love as “Eastern enchantment”, clearly not Christianity. Ironically, he apparently tries to differentiate themes of love to that of religion, specifically Christianity. Therefore, it is perhaps more accurate to assume that “Araby” is the story of the young boy who muddles between Christianity and his love towards the girl. In this sense, it is perhaps impetuous to use “Araby” as a standard to decide whether James Joyce is negative or positive towards religion; he might have just wanted to express his ambivalence towards the religion through the story.
Pretty solid, though there are a few grammatical issues (THE "back drawing-room) etc.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, "O love!" is clearly the girl and not god. But, your claim is at least unique and attempting something new. As for Joyce and his attitude towards religion, "ambivalence" might not be the best fit. However, you can be forgiven since you've had limited exposure to him.
A bit risky in some aspects of your claim, but the writing reflect the effort you put in to improving and polishing it.