阿拉比赏析 读后感 Araby

阿拉比读后感《阿拉比》读后感《阿拉比》是爱尔兰作家詹姆斯·乔伊斯的短篇小说，收录于他的短篇小说集《都柏林人》中。

这个故事以第一人称的视角讲述了一个少年在对邻居女孩的爱慕中经历的成长和失望。

通过对主人公内心世界的描写和对情感的细腻刻画，乔伊斯展现了少年的情感世界和对现实的认知，同时也表达了对爱情和成长的思考。

故事发生在都柏林的一个平凡街区，主人公是一个青少年，他对邻居女孩玛格丽特产生了强烈的爱慕之情。

他对玛格丽特的爱情是一种纯洁而又单纯的情感，他为了能接近她，甚至去参观了她所说的阿拉伯市场。

在阿拉伯市场，他被五六个小贩的叫卖声和各种琳琅满目的商品所吸引，但最终却发现自己什么都没有买到。

这个情节象征着主人公对爱情的追求和对现实的失望。

他原本对阿拉伯市场充满了憧憬，希望能为心爱的人买到一份特别的礼物，然而最终却发现市场上的一切都是平凡的，没有他想象中的那样特别。

这也反映了主人公对爱情的幻想和对现实的不满。

在故事的结尾，主人公的爱情没有得到回报，他感到了对爱情和对现实的彻底失望。

这个故事以一种悲剧的方式展现了主人公的成长和对现实的认知。

他从一个单纯的少年逐渐成长为一个对爱情和生活充满了怀疑和失望的人。

乔伊斯通过这个故事，表达了对现实的不满和对爱情的怀疑，同时也反映了少年的成长过程和对现实的认知。

《阿拉比》是一部充满了对现实和爱情思考的作品，乔伊斯通过对少年内心世界的描写和对情感的细腻刻画，展现了少年的情感世界和对现实的认知。

这个故事在描写少年的爱情和成长的过程中，也反映了对现实的不满和对爱情的怀疑。

通过这个故事，读者可以深入感受到主人公的内心世界和对爱情的思考，同时也可以反思自己对现实和爱情的态度。

这部作品不仅在文学上具有很高的艺术价值，同时也对读者的思想和情感产生了深远的影响。

阿拉比赏析读后感 Araby
《阿拉比》是爱尔兰作家约翰·威廉·萨特的经典小说，展示了一个小男孩对爱情与
美好充满憧憬的故事。

一个把少年处境融入到真实空间中的小说，用简单、坚定的独白，探讨了少年时代里
最不可磨灭的特征，那就是清晰的憧憬，明亮的期盼。

作者通过这个小男孩的旅程，以折
射作者孤独痛苦的故事绘制了一个神秘吸引的少男世界，描写了这一英雄的单纯痴迷，把
生活的颜色丰富的表现出来，用有节奏感的描写和对美的赞颂将少年的心境瞬间变得豁然
浓浓。

作者以艺术抒情，细致入微地描写了空间气氛，把爱尔兰郊外温和的空气淋漓尽致
地显示在文章里，使满分情节有了一种淡淡的温柔。

当他感受到他的激情，甚至他的痴迷时，我们也会感受到作者强烈情感的字里行间，用一种家国斗豔的语言去唤醒少年的灵魂。

当小男孩经历着美丽的迷情时，他发现了一个现实的真相，那就是所谓成功的梦想只
剩一片苍白无力，甚至失去一切的期盼。

尽管他一次次受挫，但他仍然不舍得放弃，最终
在虚无中收获了清晰和安宁，将苦难中的美好和痛苦融为了一体。

就像萨特说的“宇宙也
有大规模的考验，而我 org>在考验中永远无能为力”，他一次又一次的挫折只能使他陷
入更深的痛苦，但以疲惫的心情又一次迎接着新的挑战，希望能找到迷走中的答案。

萨特用他淋漓尽致的调调，将少年思绪放射出去，把男孩渴求爱情的激情说出来，把
少年痴迷梦想的热情文字形象化。

《阿拉比》这篇小说给我留下了深刻的印象，它带给我
不仅只是少年的激情风景，更是对于生活本身的一种认知和敬畏的象征，教会我们要去面
对现实，把爱情的梦想变成现实。

名作欣赏 / 小说论丛 >黑暗中的凝视——以《阿拉比》为例⊙任 娜［山西大学， 太原 030006］摘 要：《阿拉比》是詹姆斯·乔伊斯名闻遐迩的代表作《都柏林人》中的一篇短篇小说，它书写的是一段青春期的暗恋故事，少年在此过程中多次凝视自己心仪的女生，心路历程也随之不断地发生改变，并由此获得成长。

因此，本文将用“凝视”理论，阐释小说中人物之间的凝视与被凝视的关系。

这一关系反映出男权中心意识对女性的控制以及男性在凝视背后拥有的欲望与权力。

与此同时，文章中的男主人公通过凝视完成了对自我身份的建构和重塑。

关键词：詹姆斯·乔伊斯 《阿拉比》 凝视 欲望 权力一、引言《阿拉比》（Araby）是詹姆斯·乔伊斯（James Joyce）的代表作《都柏林人》（Dubliners）中的一篇短篇小说。

故事的缘起是“我”喜欢上了“曼根的姐姐”。

女孩某次提及想去阿拉比市场看看，于是“我”心中被这一绮丽的异国景象所充斥，一心想要去那里为她买礼物，结果在抵达朝思暮想的阿拉比之后，毫无情调的市场及普通人之间平淡琐碎的谈话打破了“我”所有的幻想之梦。

在《阿拉比》中，作者通过描写凝视的过程来展现“我”的一段青春期时的心理变化历程。

目前，学界对《阿拉比》的评论多集中在原型分析、东方形象、成长主题、叙事策略等方面，但对于文章中多次出现的“凝视”现象却鲜有涉及。

鉴于此，本文将从凝视理论切入，分析文章中主人公的心理变化及背后的原因和意义。

二、凝视：区分自我与他者朱晓兰在《文化研究关键词：凝视》中阐释了“凝视”（gaze）这一概念。

她指出，凝视指长时间地观看，但是这种观看并不仅仅局限在视觉本身，而是在视觉的基础之上带有更多的隐喻特征。

凝视的背后能够反映出个人的身份特征。

因此，在此层面上凝视揭示了一定社会性的内容，“凝视是‘看’与‘被看’的辩证法，‘看’与‘被看’的行为建构了主体与对象，主体与他者。

”在《阿拉比》这篇小说中，文章标题虽与女主人公“曼根的姐姐”息息相关，但是情节总体上却是从“我”的角度切入。

格非：读乔伊斯的《阿拉比》在《都柏林人》的15篇故事中，前三篇是用第一人称叙述的，后12篇用的则是第三人称叙事。

作者这样做，有什么特别的安排或考虑吗？我们知道，前三篇故事写的是童年和少年生活。

《姐妹们》的叙事者是旁观者，“我”并不是故事的真正主角，《偶遇》也是如此，但在《阿拉比》中，“我”既是旁观者，同时也是核心人物。

作者的用意之一，也许是想借用孩子的眼睛扫描一下都柏林的生活图景，给读者一个大致的印象。

另外，由于孩子们天真烂漫，他们的眼睛所观察到的图景尚不足以用来揭示作者预先的“意图”（尽管《姐妹们》即涉及了宗教主题，但也是点到为止）。

因此，将他们设定为旁观者，浮光掠影地描述眼中的人和事是较为自然的写法。

同时，第一人称的语调也显得亲切一些。

《阿拉比》中的“我”，已经从一个懵懂无知的儿童变成了一个情窦初开的少年。

在这个一个比较暧昧的年龄，所有的事物都带有暧昧的特征。

如果让我从世界范围内挑选10篇最好的短篇小说，我想我一定会选《阿拉比》。

记得有一年在广州，我和苏童在宾馆里聊天，说起彼此珍视的短篇小说，我们不约而同第一个想到的，竟然就是《阿拉比》。

我认为苏童喜欢《阿拉比》是有道理的，因为他自己的写作中，曾有一时期写出了不少可爱的乡村少年形象，我觉得那些形象是真实而令人难忘的，和乔伊斯一样，它复活了我们自己对于少年生活的许多记忆，或者说记忆、情感和想象的片断，而且我也觉得，苏童的文笔与写《阿拉比》的乔伊斯也有几分相似，有点漫不经心，大大咧咧，但却充满了诗意。

写到这里，我想起了另一个有意思的话题。

有一位学生在听过我的课后，回去读了《阿拉比》，但有一个问题始终在折磨她：乔伊斯为什么在《阿拉比》的开头要写“教士”，这个“教士”与整个故事一点关系也没有。

而且，作者多次写到街上的房屋，写到各种各样的气味，写到灯火、雨、玻璃窗和花坛，在我的这个学生看来，作者没有必要这么唠唠叨叨，完全可以更简洁一点。

她的另一个问题是，她一点也没觉得这篇小说有什么了不起，或者说有什么感人的地方。

校园英语 / 文艺鉴赏浅析詹姆斯•乔伊斯小说《阿拉比》中的精神瘫痪和灵魂顿悟武汉大学外国语言文学学院/刘君雅【Abstract】“Araby” is James Joyce’s early work.This essay analyzes some images in it,including “blind end”,“central apple tree” and “araby”,to illustrate moral paralysis and epiphany in this short story.【Key Words】James Joyce; Araby; moral paralysis; epiphany 【摘要】阿拉比是 詹姆斯·乔伊斯的早期作品。

本文通过分析“死胡同”、“中央的苹果树”和“阿拉比”等意象,阐释小说中凸显的精神瘫痪和灵魂顿悟主题。

【关键词】詹姆斯·乔伊斯 阿拉比 精神瘫痪 灵魂顿悟“Araby” tells a growth story of a boy,who realizes the cruel reality after his dream goes vanish.He gains the epiphany that the whole society are suffered the moral paralysis—people are blind,religious beliefs are deserted and the illusion of the society is doomed to go vanish.Many details in the short story indicate the moral paralysis of Irish society.The street where the protagonist lives is “blind” and there is “an uninhabited house” standing at “the blind end” (James Joyce 2168).The whole environment is dark,quiet,depressive and even scaring.All the things are in the “blind end” (Joyce 2168).Nothing can run out of it,of course,including love and dream.Only a priest,who is “very charitable” (Joyce 2169),can give people a little guide.There are some religious books in his room,The Abbot and The Devout Communicant,but the pages are “curled and damp”.“Curled and damp” pages indicate that religious beliefs are totally forgotten by people (Joyce 2169).However,the last shred of light and warmth also disappeared because of the death of the priest. Then,James Joyce mentions that the boy finds a “wild garden”and a “central apple-tree” behind the house.It reminds me of the Garden of Eden and Tree of Wisdom in Bible.Garden of Eden is where God lives,which stands for piety,belief and truth. But the garden is deserted,just like the abandoned spiritual world. What’s noteworthy is the “rusty bicycle-pump” in the garden (Joyce 2169),which is another reflection of the priest.Priest should pump belief,courage and hope into the society but he dies,which is similar to the “rusty bicycle-pump” that is out of use.All the images suggest that people are suffering moral paralysis and belief absence.Despite the depressing environment,the boy still decides to pursue his dream.But he suffers the disillusion through knowledge and epiphany.Mangan,charming and brilliant,becomes hope and light in his heart.Her names are like “a summons to all my foolish blood”.When the boy is in prayer,the name of the girl always “spring[s]to his lips” (Joyce 2170).The boy not only loves Mangan,but also adores her.Like Christians’ reverence and owe to Virgin Mary,he reveres the girl.Mangan really wants to go to Araby,“a splendid bazaar”,but she can’t go because of a retreat (Joyce 2170).Araby becomes an imaginary world in his heart.“Araby—the very word connotes the nature of the boy's confusion.It is a word redolent of the lush East,of distant lands,Levantine riches,romantic entertainments,mysterious magic,‘Grand Oriental Fetes.’ The boy immerses himself in this incense-filled dream world” (Harry 394).However,when he gets there,he finds that his “new world” turns out to be a dark,silent and foppish place—“nearly all the stalls were closed” and only “two men were counting money on a salver and I listened to the fall of the coins” (Joyce 2172).Seeing all this,the boy sees himself as “a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger”.He lacks knowledge of the world he lived before but now the illusion goes vanish and he gets an epiphany.“the epiphanic experience is conceptualized as one of sudden,discontinuous change,leading to profound,positive,and enduring transformation through the reconfiguration of an individual's most deeply held beliefs about self and world”(Arianna Nicole Jarvis,1).In the pursuit of love,the boy gains a experience of self-knowledge.He knows that this is a paralyzed society and he cannot realize his dream here.In Bible,Adam ate the forbidden fruit and gained knowledge because he loves Eve and was cast to the world of reality; James Joyce tells the very similar story to raise the thinking about the moral paralysis and epiphany.Reference：[1]Arianna Nicole Jarvis,Taking a break:Preliminary investigations into the psychology of epiphanies as discontinuous change experiences(January 1,1996).Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest,[2]Joyce,James.“Araby.”Ed.M.H.Abrama.The Northon Anthology of English Literature:Volume 2.New York:W. W.Norton,1986.2168-2172.[3]Stone,Harry.“Araby”and the Writings of James Joyce.The Antioch Review25.3 (1965):375.Copyright©博看网 . All Rights Reserved.- 239 -。

Of the Symbolic Meanings in ArabyJames Joyce is a world-renowned writer who is skilled in employing symbolic meanings to the surroundings and backgrounds which seem quite simple and plain but actually bear rich information. The short novel Araby is a typical example.First of all, the symbolic technique begins with the title Araby. The word "Araby" shares a similar spelling with "Arab". Definitely, it is neither a coincidence nor a spelling mistake. In other words, the author names it on purpose. Arab is an ideal destination full of oriental mystery and magic from the Westerners’ points of view. In the hero’s opinion, his beloved girl is as perfect as the bazaar Araby.Then what is the reality? On one hand, the boy finds himself in a big hall girdled at half its height by a gallery. Nearly all the stalls are closed and the greater part of the hall is in darkness. Obviously, here Araby in reality has a totally different symbolic meaning from the previous imagination. To be specific, here Araby symbolizes the dull society of Ireland. On the other hand, he is shocked by the flirting of a young lady in the bazaar. So much to his surprise, Araby is not that wonderful and what’s worse, those good-looking girls are not that pure. Both points shatter his illusion of pureness.Besides, it is easy to find the symbolism in the whole passage, which implies the sharp contrast between the imagination and reality, and foretells the boy’s inevitable frustration. "North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street…”, here the author tends to tell us that surrounded by such an experienced society, it is impossible for the boy to find way out of the shackles of "blind street".Such kind of techniques can be found almost every paragraph, I have named just a few.There is an old saying “Less is more", to this point, I can not agree more and James Joyce sets a pretty good example for us. Without tedious and dull descriptions, he is expert in using sublime words with deep meaning by employing symbolic meanings to the surroundings and backgrounds.。

"Araby" and the Writings of James JoyceCritic: Harry StoneSource: "`Araby' and the Writings of James Joyce," in The Antioch Review, Vol. XXV, no. 3, Fall, 1965, pp. 375-445.Criticism about: "Araby"Author Covered: James JoyceTable of Contents:Essay | Source Citation[Stone is an educator, editor, and Charles Dickens scholar. In the following excerpted essay, he discusses some of the autobiographical elements of "Araby," which include Joyce's childhood in Dublin, Ireland, and how the exoticism of the real-life Araby festival, with its Far Eastern overtones, impacted the young Joyce. Stone also discusses the poet James Mangan's influence on the story. ]For "Araby" preserves a central episode in Joyce's life, an episode he will endlessly recapitulate. The boy in "Araby" like the youthful Joyce himself, must begin to free himself from the nets and trammels of society. That beginning involves painful farewells and disturbing dislocations. The boy must dream "no more of enchanted days." He must forego the shimmering mirage of childhood, begin to see things as they really are. But to see things as they really are is only a prelude. Far in the distance lies his appointed (but as yet unimagined) task: to encounter the reality of experience and forge the uncreated conscience of his race. The whole of that struggle, of course, is set forth in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. "Araby" is the identical struggle at an earlier stage; "Araby" is a portrait of the artist as a young boy.The autobiographical nexus of "Araby" is not confined to the struggle raging in the boy's mind, though that conflict--an epitome of Joyce's first painful effort to see--is central and controls all else. Many of the details of the story are also rooted in Joyce's life. The narrator of "Araby"--the narrator is the boy of the story now grown up--lived, like Joyce, on North Richmond Street. North Richmond Street is blind, with a detached two-story house at the blind end, and down the street, as the opening paragraph informs us, the Christian Brothers' school. Like Joyce, the boy attended this school, and again like Joyce he found it dull and stultifying. Furthermore, the boy's surrogate parents, his aunt and uncle, are a version of Joyce's parents: the aunt, with her forbearance and her unexamined piety, is like his mother; the uncle, with his irregular hours, his irresponsibility, his love of recitation, and his drunkenness, is like his father.Source Citation: Stone, Harry, "`Araby' and the Writings of James Joyce," in The Antioch Review, Vol. XXV, no. 3, Fall, 1965, pp. 375-445. EXPLORING Short Stories. Online Edition. Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center. Thomson Gale. 04 June 2007</servlet/SRC>Historical Context: "Araby"Table of Contents:Source CitationWhile Dublin, Ireland, has seen much change since the turn of the twentieth century, when Joyce wrote many of the conditions present then remain today. In 1904, all of Ireland was under British control, which the Irish resented bitterly. The nationalist group Sinn Fein (part of which later became the Irish Republican Army--the IRA) had not yet formed, but Irish politics were nonetheless vibrant and controversial. The question of Irish independence from Britain was one of primary importance to every citizen.There were no televisions or radios for entertainment at the turn of the century. Children in working-class families were expected to help with running the household, as the boy in does when he carries packages for his aunt at the market, and to entertain themselves by reading or playing alone or with others. It was rare for children to have money of their own to spend. An event like the bazaar in would cause great excitement.Ireland's major religion, Roman Catholicism, dominated Irish culture, as it continues to do today although to a lesser extent. Many families sent their children to schools run by Jesuit priests (like the one the narrator in attends) and convent schools run by nuns (like the one Mangan's sister attends). Catholicism is often seen as a source of the frequent conflict in Irish culture between sensuality and asceticism, a conflict that figures prominently in Joyce's autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man . In many ways, Catholicism, particularly as practiced at the turn of the century, was an extremely sensuous religion, emphasizing intense personal spiritual experience and surrounding itself with such rich trappings as beautiful churches, elegant paintings and statues, otherworldly music, and sumptuous vestments and altar decorations. On the other hand, the Church's official attitude toward enjoyment of the senses and particularly toward sexuality was severe and restrictive. The ideal woman was the Virgin Mary, who miraculously combined virginal purity with maternity. Motherhood was exalted, but any enjoyment of sexuality, even in marriage, was considered a sin, as were the practice of birth control and abortion. The inability to reconcile the spiritual and sensual aspects of human nature can be seen in the boy's feelings toward Mangan's sister in He imagines his feelings for her as a "chalice"--a sacred religiousobject--and so worshipful is his attitude that he hesitates even to speak to her. Yet his memories of her focus almost exclusively on her body--her figure silhouetted by the light, the "soft rope of her hair," "the white curve of her neck," the border of her petticoat. Even the image of the chalice is ambivalent, since its cup-like shape and function suggests a sexual connotation. The boy never resolves this conflict between spirituality and sensuality. Instead, when confronted with the tawdriness of a shopgirl's flirtation at the bazaar, he abruptly dismisses all his feelings as mere "vanity."The Structure of "Araby"Critic: Jerome MandelSource: "The Structure of `Araby'," in Modern Language Studies, Vol. XV, no. 4, Fall, 1985, pp. 48-54.Criticism about: "Araby"Author Covered: James JoyceTable of Contents:Essay | Source Citation[In the following excerpt, Mandel compares the imagery of Joyce's "Araby" to that of medieval romance, particular with regard to the protagonist's love for Mangan's sister. ][In "Araby" the two paragraphs] beginning "Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance" and ending with his "murmuring: O love! O love! many times"--have long been examined for images from medieval romance and need not be recapitulated in detail here. My concern is not that [the boy's] world is hostile to romance (both literary tradition and personal feeling) and that her image accompanies him, but that the paradigm of courtly romance is strictly maintained and the attitudes of courtly love constantly suggested. As the boy continues to perform his public duties in the world (to win worship: "I had... to carry some of the parcels"), he retains the attitude and response of the courtly lover. As a lover totally possessed by love, he moves out of time, and all worldly, public, and temporal considerations pass from him: "I thought little of the future." He is swept by strange emotions: "My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why)" and rendered inarticulate. When all his "senses seem to desire to veil themselves" and he trembles in adoration, he exhibits the proper response of one committed to love. The conflicting demands of world, duty, and love developed in these two paragraphs exhibit in action what, in the medieval romance, is the love debate--the soliloquy that usually begins when the lover first sees the knight or lady and ends when the lover places himself (or herself) totally in the service of love....In the next passage, the passage that establishes and defines the quest (and which ends with the lover's commitment: "I will bring you something"), the lady is first to speak in her double role as the object of the lover's adoration and she for whose sake the adventure is to be undertaken. "At last she spoke to me"--the lady at last recognizes the miserable, worshipful knight who has adored her from a distance without hope of success but with unrelenting devotion. He responds as do all courtly lovers when they first come to the attention of the beloved: he is "so confused that I did not know what to answer." When she asks if he is going to Araby, "I forget whether I answered yes or no." Her wish, "she would love to go," is his command: he must take upon himself the fulfillment of an adventure to which he has been called by love--one she herself is prevented from accomplishing. The multiple religious symbolism of the two "alone at the railings" which suggests both marriage and communion, is enriched by the further suggestion from medieval romance that he dedicates his lance to her ("she held one of the spikes") and she accepts his consecration to her service ("bowing her head toward me"). If he does not actually receive a favor from her to carry on quest, there is promise of reward for knightly service in the "silver bracelet" which she turns "round and round her wrist." Whatever else it means, her curious final line, "It's well for you," is tantamount to anadmission of love, for in the context of medieval love revelations the line means, "it is well for you--that is, you are better off than I am--since you are not smitten by love for me as I am smitten by painful love for you." I do not mean to imply that Mangan's sister actually loves the boy nor that he thinks she does, but only that her response in this context has particular connotations in medieval romance."Araby" by James (Augustine Aloysius) Joyce[Plot Summary]Author: James (Augustine Aloysius) Joyce, also known as: James Augustine Aloysius Joyce, James Augustus Aloysius Joyce, and James (Augustine Aloysius) JoyceGenre: short storiesDate: 1914Table of Contents:Essay | Source CitationIntroduction"Araby" is one of fifteen short stories that together make up James Joyce's collection, Dubliners. Although Joyce wrote the stories between 1904 and 1906, they were not published until 1914.Dubliners paints a portrait of life in Dublin, Ireland, at the turn of the 20th century. Its stories are arranged in an order reflecting the development of a child into a grown man. The first three stories are told from the point of view of a young boy, the next three from the point of view of an adolescent, and so on. "Araby" is the last story of the first set, and is told from the perspective of a boy just on the verge of adolescence. The story takes its title from a real festival which came to Dublin in 1894 when Joyce was twelve years old.Joyce is one of the most famous writers of the Modernist period of literature, which runs roughly from 1900 to the end of World War II. Modernist works often include characters who are spiritually lost and themes that reflect a cynicism toward institutions the writer had been taught to respect, such as government and religion. Much of the literature of this period is experimental; Joyce's writing reflects this in the use of dashes instead of quotation marks to indicate that a character is speaking.Joyce had a very difficult time getting Dubliners published. It took him over ten years to find a publisher who was willing to risk publishing the stories because of their unconventional style and themes. Once he found a publisher, he fought very hard with the editors to keep the stories the way he had written them. Years later, these stories are heralded not only for their portrayal of life in Dublin at the turn of the century, but also as the beginning of the career of one of the most brilliant English-language writers of the twentieth century.Plot"Araby" opens on North Richmond street in Dublin, where "an uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground." The narrator, who remains unnamed throughout the story, lives with his aunt and uncle. He describes his block, then discusses the former tenant who lived in his house: a priest who recently died in the back room. This priest has a library that attracts the young narrator, and he is particularly interested in three titles: a Sir Walter Scott romance, a religious tract, and a police agent's memoirs.The narrator talks about being a part of the group of boys who play in the street. He then introduces Mangan's sister, a girl who captivates his imagination even though he rarely, if ever, speaks with her. He does stare at her from his window and follow her on the street, however, often thinking of her "even in places the most hostile to romance." While in the marketplace on Saturday nights, for example, he uses her image to guide him through the thronging crowd who yell their sales pitches and sing patriotic Irish ballads. He becomes misty-eyed just at the thought of her and retreats to the priest's dark room in order to deprive himself of other senses and think only of her.Finally, Mangan's sister speaks to him. She asks if he will be attending a church-sponsored fair that is coming soon to Dublin--a bazaar called "Araby." He is tongue-tied and cannot answer, but when she tells him that she cannot go because of a retreat that week in her convent, he promises to go and bring her a gift from the bazaar. From then on he can only think of the time when he will be at the fair; he is haunted by "the syllables of the word Araby." On the night he is supposed to attend the fair, his uncle is late returning home and he must wait to get money from him. He gets very anxious, and his aunt tells him that he may have to miss the bazaar, but his uncle does come home, apologetic that he had forgotten. After asking the boy if he knows a poem entitled "The Arab's Farewell to His Steed," the uncle bids the boy farewell.The boy takes a coin from his uncle and catches a train to the fair. Araby is closing down as he arrives and he timidly walks through the center of the bazaar. As he looks at the few stalls that are still open, he overhears a conversation between an English shop-girl and two young men. Their talk is nothing but idle gossip. The shop-girl pauses reluctantly to ask the boy if he wishes to buy anything, but he declines. As he walks slowly out of the hall amid the darkening of the lights, he thinks that he is a "creature driven and derided by vanity" and his "eyes burned with anguish and anger."CharactersNarrator: The narrator of this story is a young, sensitive boy who confuses a romantic crush and religious enthusiasm. All of the conflict in this story happens inside his mind. It is unlikely that the object of his crush, Mangan's sister, is aware of his feelings for her, nor is anybody else in this boy's small world. Because the boy's thoughts only reveal a part of the story, acareful reader must put together clues that the author gives. For example, the narrator mentions that the former tenant of the house he shares with his aunt and uncle was a priest, a representative of the Catholic church, who left behind three books which became important to the narrator. One is a romantic adventure by Sir Walter Scott; one is a religious pamphlet written by a Protestant; and the third is the exciting memoirs of a French policeman and master of disguise. These three books are not what a person would expect a Catholic priest to have in his library. So if this priest has non-religious literature in his library, then how devout can an average church-goer be expected to be? This turns out to be the case for the narrator, who confuses religious idealism with romance.The boy confuses the religious and secular worlds when he describes himself at the market with his aunt. He bears the chalice--the Communion cup--through a "throng of foes." He also describes Mangan's sister in terms often associated with the Virgin Mary. For the narrator, then, an ordinary grocery-shopping trip becomes a religious crusade, and a pretty girl down the street becomes a substitute for the Mother of God. The boy fuses together religious devotion for the Virgin Mary with his own romantic longing.Joyce is famous for creating characters who undergo an epiphany--a sudden moment of insight--and the narrator of "Araby" is one of his best examples. At the end of the story, the boy overhears a trite conversation between an English girl working at the bazaar and two young men, and he suddenly realizes that he has been confusing things. It dawns on him that the bazaar, which he thought would be so exotic and exciting, is really only a commercialized place to buy things. Furthermore, he now realizes that Mangan's sister is just a girl who will not care whether he fulfills his promise to buy her something at the bazaar. His conversation with Mangan's sister, during which he promised he would buy her something, was really only small talk--as meaningless as the one between the English girl and her companions. He leaves Araby feeling ashamed and upset. This epiphany signals a change in the narrator--from an innocent, idealistic boy to an adolescent dealing with harsh realities.Mangan's Sister: Mangan is one of the narrator's chums who lives down the street. His older sister becomes the object of the narrator's schoolboy crush. Mangan's sister has no idea how the narrator feels about her, however, so when they discuss "Araby," the bazaar coming to town, she is only being polite and friendly. She says she would like to go to the bazaar but cannot because she has to attend a school retreat that weekend. The narrator promises to buy her something at the bazaar if he goes, but it is unlikely that she takes this promise seriously. While on the one hand the narrator describes her romantically, he also describes her in reverential terms which call to mind the Virgin Mary. This dual image description of Mangan's sister represents the religious and romantic confusion of the narrator.Mangan: Mangan is the same age and in the same class at the Christian Brothers school as the narrator, and so he and the narrator often play together after school. His older sister is the object of the narrator's confused feelings.Narrator's Aunt: The narrator's aunt, who is a mother figure in the story, takes the narrator with her to do the marketing. When it seems as though the uncle has forgotten his promise tothe narrator that he could go to the bazaar, she warns the boy that he may have to "put off" the bazaar "for this night of Our Lord." While this statement makes her seem strict in a religious sense, she also exhibits empathy for the boy's plight. She pleads his case when the uncle forgets about the boy's plans to go to Araby.Narrator's Uncle: The narrator's uncle seems self-centered and very unreliable. When the narrator reminds him that he wants to go to the bazaar, he replies, "Yes, boy, I know." But on the Saturday evening of the bazaar, he has forgotten, which causes the narrator to arrive at the bazaar very late. When the uncle finally shows up, he has been drinking, and as the boy leaves for the bazaar he begins reciting the opening lines of the poem, "The Arab's Farewell to his Steed." Joyce's characterization of the uncle bears resemblance to his own father, who liked to drink and was often in debt. Joyce's inclusion of Mrs. Mercer, the pawnbroker's widow who waits for the uncle to return, suggests tha t the uncle owes money.Themes and Construction: "Araby"Table of Contents:Source CitationThemesThe narrator recalls a boyhood crush he had on the sister of a friend. He went to "Araby," a bazaar with an exotic Oriental theme, in order to buy a souvenir for the object of his crush. He arrived late, however, and when he overheard a shallow conversation between a female clerk and her male friends and saw the bazaar closing down, he was overcome with a sense of futility.Alienation and LonelinessThe theme of isolation is introduced early in the story by the image of a deserted, isolated house and the narrator's recollection of a priest who lived and died in their back room. The young protagonist seems isolated within his family. There is no mention of his parents; he lives with his aunt and uncle, and the uncle, in particular, appears insensitive to the boy's feelings, coming home late even though he knows the boy wants to go to the bazaar. The boy's crush on his friend Mangan's sister seems to isolate him even further. He is too tongue-tied to initiate a relationship with her, worshipping her from afar instead. Moreover, his crush appears to isolate him from his friends. Whereas early in the story he is depicted as part of a group of friends playing in the street, after his crush develops his separation from the others is emphasized: he stands by the railings to be close to the girl while the other boys engage in horseplay, and as he waits in the house for his uncle to return so he can go to the bazaar the noises from his friends playing in the street sound "weakened and indistinct." The story ends with him confronting his disillusionment alone in the nearly deserted bazaar.Change and TransformationThe narrator experiences an emotional transformation--changing from an innocent young boy to a disillusioned adolescent--in the flash of an instant, although the reader can look back through the story and trace the forces that lead to the transformation. This change occurs through what Joyce called an "epiphany," a moment of sudden and intense insight. Although the narrator suddenly understands that his romantic fantasies are hopelessly at odds with the reality of his life, this understanding leaves him neither happy nor satisfied; instead, he feels "anguish and anger." It is not clear what impact the narrator's epiphany will have on his future development, only that that development has begun.Fantasy and RealityThe story draws connections between the romantic idealism of the young protagonist's attitude toward Mangan's sister and romantic fantasies in the surrounding culture. Much of this romanticism seems to stem from religion, the pervasive presence of which is emphasized by mentions of the youngsters' parochial schools, repeated references to the dead priest, and the aunt 's fear that the bazaar might be a "Freemason" affair and her reference to "[T]his night of our Lord." The boy carries his thoughts of Mangan's sister like a "chalice through a throng of foes," and his crush inspires in him "strange prayers and praises." The way the girl herself is described--as an alluring but untouchable figure dramatically lit--and the boy's worshipful attitude give her something of the character of a religious statue. Popular culture is also suggested as a source of the boy's romanticism, in the references to Sir Walter Scott's The Abbot and the poem "The Arab's Farewell to His Steed." The contrast between fantasy and reality draws to a head at the Araby bazaar, whose exotic name is merely packaging for a crassly commercial venture. In the nearly deserted hall and the insipid flirtation he overhears between two men and a shopgirl, the protagonist is confronted with huge gap between his romantic fantasies of love and the mundane and materialistic realities of his life.ConstructionThrough the use of a first person narrative, an older narrator recalls the confused thoughts and dreams of his adolescent self. Joyce uses this familiarity with the narrator 's feelings to evoke in readers a response similar to the boy's "epiphany"--a sudden moment of insight and understanding--at the turning point of the story.Point of Viewis told from the first person point of view, but its perspective is complicated by the gap in age and perception between the older narrator and the younger self he remembers. The story takes the form of a reminiscence about an apparent turning point in the narrator 's growth, a partial explanation of how the young protagonist became the older self who is the narrator. The reader is given no direct information about the narrator, however, his relentless contrasting of his boyhood self's idealism with the tawdry details of his life, and the story 's closing line,create a somewhat bitter and disillusioned tone. It is left to the reader to decide how far the narrator has travelled toward a "true" understanding of reality.SymbolismJoyce's use of symbolism enriches the story 's meaning. The former tenant of the narrator's house, the Catholic priest, could be said to represent the entire Catholic church. By extension, the books left in his room--which include non-religious and non-Catholic reading--suggest a feeling of ambiguity toward religion in general and Catholicism in particular. The bazaar "Araby" represents the "East"--a part of the world that is exotic and mysterious to the Irish boy. It could also represent commercialism, since despite the boy's romantic imaginings its purpose is in fact to make money. Mrs. Mercer, the pawnbroker's widow, is another representative of materialism. To the narrator, Mangan's sister is a symbol of purity and feminine perfection. These qualities are often associated with the Virgin Mary, who also symbolizes the Catholic church. While the boy is at Araby, the various, and often contrasting, meanings of these symbols converge to produce his epiphany.ModernismJoyce is known as one of the leading authors of Modernism, a movement in art and literature in the first half of the twentieth century that emphasized experimentation and a break with traditional forms. In this early work Joyce's narrative technique is still fairly traditional and straightforward. However, several features of the story can be identified as experimental and modernist, particularly in the extent to which the reader is left to sort out the story 's meaning with little overt help from the author. The story concerns a relatively ordinary occurrence in the life of an ordinary person; we are never told directly how or why it might be important. We are given no direct information about the narrator, but must glean what we can about his character from the story he tells and the way in which he tells it; we are not even told what the age difference is between the narrator and his younger self. The story ends, as it begins, abruptly, with again no direct indication of the significance of the protagonist's "epiphany," his olderself's attitude toward it, or what it meant for his further development. Much of the early criticism of -that the stories were "sordid" and lacked structure and a "point"--reflect the unfamiliarity and uneasiness of Joyce's contemporary readers with these innovations in storytelling.。

詹姆斯·乔伊斯是举世公认的二十世纪英国文坛巨匠。

他的早期作品《都柏林人》是一部由十五个故事组成的现实主义短篇小说集。

该小说集以作者的家乡都柏林为背景，生动地描绘了二十世纪初该城市的社会现实和人生百态，深刻地反映出当时社会麻木不仁的瘫痪状态，成功地展示了不同身份的人物同僵死和瘫痪的社会之间的激烈冲突以及他们失败之后痛苦不堪的感受。

作者从童年期、青年期、成年期和社会生活四个方面对这部小说集进行布局，揭示了当时社会政治、经济和道德的瘫痪。

《阿拉比》是该小说集中“童年期”的第三篇，描述的是一个少年对朦胧爱情的浪漫追求以及幻想破灭后的失望和痛苦。

在故事中，乔伊斯细致而深刻地刻画了主人公复杂的内心世界，展示了主人公在认识自我，走向成熟的过程中所经历的困惑、孤独和痛苦。

故事是以第一人称叙述的，主人公是一个天真无邪、正在成熟的少年，他居住的地方名叫“北理查蒙德街”，住处的周围是一些阴森森的楼房、幽暗潮湿的花园和满是泥泞的巷子。

然而，少年对这些并没有深刻的意识，直到他对“曼根的姐姐”产生了朦胧的“爱慕”之情时才有了一种孤独和茫然之感，因为他根本不知道爱情究竟是什么样的，也不知道如何表达自己对姑娘的爱慕之情。

当有一天他朝思暮想的“曼根的姐姐”主动和他说话，并告诉他该去“阿拉比”集市时，他的思想有了变化，他渴望去集市为心爱的姑娘买一份礼物。

可见少年去“阿拉比”的渴望是出于对心中朦胧的爱情的本能追求。

“阿拉比”这个具有阿拉伯异域色彩和东方世界神秘魅力的集市给他带来了希望和诱惑，寄托着他的爱情和理想，象征着他探索与追求的目标。

于是，去“阿拉比”集市意味着他开始了追求理想，寻找自我的“成长之旅”。

然而，当他几经周折到达集市时，“几乎所有的摊棚都关门了。

半个大厅里黑沉沉的。

我有一种孤寂之感，犹如置身于做完礼拜后的教堂中。

”当他困难地想起自己来集市的目的时，他随意走到一个摆着瓷花瓶和印花茶具的摊棚前。

他看见的却是一个女郎与两名英国男子调情的场面。