The Use of Symbolism in Western Culture

Adjectives Joyce uses to describe the street take on "blind" and "somber," where the houses "gazed at one a nonher with brown dispassionate faces" (294).

"Brown" is the most frequent color used in the story and is a form of grislyness. Even the girlfriend who represents light, Magnan's sis who is a " anatomy defined by light" (295) is milled in dull brown, perhaps symbolic of her true personality that the son discovers by story's end. At the beginning of the story, however, the boy has never spoken to the girl and all he knows of her is the way she looks. The simulacrum of light is used in all the boy's descriptions of the girl - "her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door" (295). "The light from the lamp reversion our door caught the snowy curve of her neck, lit up her pig that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the kvetch" (296). The light is almost a halo, symbolizing and indicating the boy's mixing unearthly and romantic feelings. It is as if his love for the girl has replaced the fading regularise of the Church in his liveliness. In his mind he turns this girl whom he hardly knows into a kind of saintly princess. Caught up in the throes of first love and awakening sexuality, he is excessively driven by the need to transform his drab, dark, empty life into something wonderful.

The color white is also used in computer address to the girl, symbolizing the boy's belief in the innocence and purity of the object glass of his love. She may be dressed in br

The girl, who is the older sister of the boy's friend Mangan, finally speaks to the boy; up until that time he has worshipped her silently from afar. She asks him if he is going to the bazaar at Araby; she can't go, still hopes that he can. He tells her he will go and bring her back a present. To the boy, just the name Araby conjures up a magical initiation of light and hope, elements lacking in his everyday life ask out for his romantic notion of the girl.

The boy's experience at the Araby bazaar is not what he envisioned it would be. It turns out to be a dark world, filled with disappointment and not different from the boy's everyday life. Darkness, not light, is the dominant tone and color of Joyce's story.

The boy is late getting to Araby because his uncle was late coming home to give him the necessary carfare. The special train for the bazaar arrives shortly because closing time. The scene is not the exotic, colorful one the boy expected. "Nearly all the stalls were closed and the greater part of the hall was in ugliness" (297).

own, a brown figure always in the boy's eye, but he views her as a figure of light: the "white curve of her neck," and "the white fence in of a petticoat" barely visible under the brown dress (296). The white border of her petticoat (to see a girl's petticoat was a interdict sight) symbolizes the mixing of sensuality with the boy's feeling of religious adoration toward her. He pictures himself carrying her image as a chalice. "Her image accompanied me heretofore in places hostile to romance," such as the marketplace. "I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through the th
Order your essay at Orderessay and get a 100% original and high-quality custom paper within the required time frame.