NOTES ON JAMES JOYCE'S "ARABY"

The boy is desirous. He watches Mangan's sister from a distance and engages his longing. "Or if Mangan's sister came out on the doorstep to call her brother in to his tea, we watched her from our shadow peer up and down the street." From his place of apparent damnation, he aspires after the light. In a sense, he tries to capture her and take her back to his lair. Joyce has already described how the [setting] of the boys "free" from school disturbs the quiet of the dead end street. The text underlines how the reverential seems to restrain darker impulses. The boy's passion is ignited by a few books that he finds among the former inhabitant's papers. "I liked the last best because its leaves were yellow. The wild garden behind the house contained a central apple-tree and a few straggling bushes, under one of which I found the late tenant's rusty bicycle-pump." There is a simmering energy in the detail offered. Even the bicycle-pump has a sense of the forbidden. More than ever, he is covetous as his imagination seeks an independent reality that embraces everything that he sees. In watching Mangan's sister, he creates a feeling surpasses the immediacy of the experience. "We waited to see whether she would remain or go in and, if she remained, we left our shadow and walked up to Mangan's steps resignedly. She was waiting for us, her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door." She achieves a transcendence in that she exists as this refined abstraction. The artistry beckons by its force and its utter independence from the actuality of her life. This is a clear extension of the magic of the books whereby the boy is granted access to this other world, his Araby. It is magical, full of mysterious words with special powers and as such it is pagan in its allure.

Ultimately the boy cannot interact with her. He has already captured her shadow, her form and brought it to life. "Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door. The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash so that I could not be seen. When she came out on the doorstep my heart leaped. I ran to the hall, seized my books and followed her. I kept her brown figure always in my eye and, when we came near the point at which our ways diverged, I quickened my pace and passed her." His surveillance offers him the chance to increase the ardor associated with his vision. He seems to enhance the mystical enchantment, and in his ritual he communes with the spirit. But he cannot communicate with her. His damnation becomes more permanent by the moment. But in damnation, he seeks a salvation of which she cannot dream. She remains a "figure" in the apparition. His devotion rivals the same attached to his religion and jeopardizes his salvation. "This happened morning after morning. I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood." Recognizing the temptation in his attachment to the "foolish", he enhances his attachment with this ceremonial recitation. This is his daily prayer. Moreover, the sacred immerses him in his desire: "Her dress swung as she moved her body, and the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side." The motion and the image of the dress detach themselves from her and further inflame the boy's passions. "Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance." Since her image already exists separate from her, his concentration on this apparition insure his frenzied transport into the underworld. "These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires." His tears are the material evidence of the massive intensity of his confrontation
with this new form. He absconds with her soul. In playing him, like a harp, she comes to life in the vision.

The tides of these passions swirl around the boy in more and more forceful waves. The noise of the rain becomes the hypnotic spell that he needs. "One evening I went into the back drawing-room in which the priest had died. It was a dark rainy evening and there was no sound in the house. Through one of the broken panes I heard the rain impinge upon the earth, the fine incessant needles of water playing in the sodden beds." Where initially he had seemed to influence the feeling, now the possession is irresistible. "Some distant lamp or lighted window gleamed below me. I was thankful that I could see so little. 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." The crescendo offers response to his longing. At such a point, it would be impossible to share his revelation with her.

When she finally, speaks to him, she transmits a holy mission that totally possesses him.

"At last she spoke to me. When she addressed the first words to me I was so confused that I did not know what to answer. She asked me was I going to Araby. I forgot whether I answered yes or no. It would be a splendid bazaar; she said she would love to go." The realities of the bazaar are entirely secondary. His already jeopardized soul accepts the mortal conditions indicated by this pagan journey. Even she finds refuge in a convent retreat. "While she spoke she turned a silver bracelet round and round her wrist." Her nervous gesture inspire for him the same sense of pagan idolatry that had indulged his previous fantasies. "She could not go, she said, because there would be a retreat that week in her convent. Her brother and two other boys were fighting for their caps, and I was alone at the railings. She held one of the spikes, bowing her head towards me. The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. It fell over one side of her dress and caught the white border of a petticoat, just visible as she stood at ease." He accepts his mission even while risking the related dangers to his immortal soul. The "white border of the petticoat" provides him with further stimulation for his desire. "'It's well for you,' she said. 'If I go,' I said, 'I will bring you something.'" The agreement offers the suggestion that he might escape from vile idealism. His gift for her could bring her into his creative experience. Otherwise, his craft only furthers his idolatry.
Ordinary language has already become something strange when associated with his mystical investigations. The words break down to hints of their primitive rhythms. As such he responds to the waves of an ocean of hidden meaning that is contained in letter and syllable. It is a language very much in contrast to the rigidity of Latin and its sacred conjugation. "What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that evening! I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days. I chafed against the work of school. At night in my bedroom and by day in the classroom her image came between me and the page I strove to read. The syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me." His sin is a cultural transgression and his embrace only becomes more fixated. Silence is a pose, a way beyond words launched at the very heart of language-what speaks for language as system, as personality. He speaks the language of the demon and courts heresy. Even his aunt wonders about the providence of this bazaar that appeals to him. " I asked for leave to go to the bazaar on Saturday night. My aunt was surprised, and hoped it was not some Freemason affair." Overcome by the appeals of this pagan ritual, he is given to idleness. He is preoccupied with his new home, and can only be complacent among everyday bustle and distraction. " I answered few questions in class. I watched my master's face pass from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was not beginning to idle. I could not call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child's play, ugly monotonous child's play. [my emphasis]" Critically, with the appeal of this world of delights, the quotidian details of his school have a grotesque flavor. As such, the hellish is further province of his transcendent gesture.
His hell is now all the more apparent in the struggle with is uncle to get the money for the bazaar. He already implants the suggestion with him. But the uncle seems rather distracted.

His surroundings reflect his reservation He is being prepared for disaster: As he was in the hall I could not go into the front parlour and lie at the window. I felt the house in bad humour and walked slowly towards the school. The air was pitilessly raw and already my heart misgave me."
He knows what is his duty, but the resolution is not his. "When I came home to dinner my uncle had not yet been home. Still it was early. I sat staring at the clock for some time and, when its ticking began to irritate me, I left the room. I mounted the staircase and gained the upper part of the house." The staring only underlines his dilemma. He cannot obtain access to further transcendence without this thing that is so separate from him. " The high, cold, empty, gloomy rooms liberated me and I went from room to room singing. From the front window I saw my companions playing below in the street. Their cries reached me weakened and indistinct and, leaning my forehead against the cool glass, I looked over at the dark house where she lived. I may have stood there for an hour, seeing nothing but the brown-clad figure cast by my imagination, touched discreetly by the lamplight at the curved neck, at the hand upon the railings and at the border below the dress." The emptiness of the house transfers to her absence. She is being absolved in retreat. He is only lost in his sin. His imagination recapitulates the details of her image. Now, the litany only reinforces his entrapment. He is a prisoner until his uncle's return. He is confined without the present for the girl. "The meal was prolonged beyond an hour and still my uncle did not come." The unbearable gossip makes the hour seem longer as his condemnation seems to unfold. The absent uncle serves as executioner. And the torture is prolonged: "I began to walk up and down the room, clenching my fists." His aunt pronounces sentence: "'I'm afraid you may put off your bazaar for this night of Our Lord.'" But he still does not want to surrender. He hardly greets his uncle, so absorbed is he by his singular mission. His mortification is demonstrated by his uncle's seeming ignorance of the importance of the mission. Instead, the uncle offers a common sense lesson that reminds him of the condition of his lapse. "My uncle said he was very sorry he had forgotten. He said he believed in the old saying: 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.' He asked me where I was going and, when I told him a second time, he asked me did I know The Arab's Farewell to his Steed. When I left the kitchen he was about to recite the opening lines of the piece to my aunt."

Even the boy's escape from his prison is temporary as the surrounding environment seems to resist his quest. "After an intolerable delay the train moved out of the station slowly. It crept onward among ruinous houses and over the twinkling river." The delay is probably standard, but for him it is eternal. He is then judge and sent to his private "cell" " At Westland Row Station a crowd of people pressed to the carriage doors; but the porters moved them back, saying that it was a special train for the bazaar. I remained alone in the bare carriage. In a few minutes the train drew up beside an improvised wooden platform. I passed out on to the road and saw by the lighted dial of a clock that it was ten minutes to ten. In front of me was a large building which displayed the magical name." As he rushes into the hall, he notes that he is too late. All the spoils have been distributed. He cannot hide in his prize but must face the nakedness of his desire. The journey does not offer respite as he seems to have returned to the very gossip that he has tried to escape. He cannot reform language to suit his pupose; he is the idle boy prone to the "fib" described by the gossipers:

'O, I never said such a thing!'

'O, but you did!'

'O, but I didn't!'

'Didn't she say that?'

'Yes. I heard her.'

'O, there's a... fib!'

His hope to see the wares seems only a distraction from their conversation. Worse, they speak with English accents-the pagan culture. He has been thoroughly seduced by the commerce. His troubles with Magnan's sister are reenacted in this conversation with the English woman. But now the circumstances seem more mediocre. There is no magic. He cannot make the fair come to life: I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. The upper part of the hall was now completely dark." He is now irrevocably in hell. His punishment reminds him of the source of his damnation: "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger." Again his eyes reflect that sense of perdition that had previously driven him to tears.