Reading - Araby by James Joyce
Journal #1

       This story, as well as the novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (also by James Joyce) has rather changed the way I view literature. Before I read this I guess I was under the impression that literature only had value if it made a political or philosophical point, or if it had a clever plot, or if it changed the world somehow. I'm not saying that this story didn't have any of those things, but this story has raw aesthetic appeal like I've never read before. The last line in particular hits hard. “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.” That line has stuck with me ever since I first read the story in class. It is just the utter hopelessness of a person who gets relentlessly knocked down by the dullness of ordinary life. First, his uncle comes home late due to work and he can’t leave until nine. Then, he goes a dull train ride and arrives at a bazaar half-closed down. When he approaches the shop he finds that the people there have boring English accents and are having a boring conversation about nothing. His expectations are entirely unmet, none of the magic he was expecting from the bazaar occurred, and he even almost forgets why he came in the first place. This entire letdown of a bazaar gave him an epiphany – that the entire effort was pointless in the first place. It is at that moment when he realizes that (like the bazaar) his expectations of Mangan’s sister will never be met either. In one night all of his optimism is destroyed, and this feeling of despair is put perfectly in the last line of the story. James Joyce is one of the best naturalistic storytellers, he just seems to understand human beings and their emotions, as well as the way people react to certain situations (i.e. THIS is real life... THIS is how THESE people act, and when THESE people interact with THOSE people, something like THIS invariably happens... such is life). Life sucks, especially life by James Joyce.