James Joyce

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the structured encounters with the discursive nature of experience in James Joyce's short stories, "Araby" and "An Encounter". The paper examines the similarities and the differences in these two stories, both in the storyline and in the experiences of the protagonist. The paper explains that, despite the wildness these short stories chronicle, both are highly structured. Even though both stories are intensely sensual and put the protagonist through a dizzying array of experiences, both stories begin with order, proceed into different forms of disorder in play and fair-like environments, and finally culminate into a final, resolving order that leaves the adolescent protagonists wiser than they were before.

From the Paper:

"These life-changing events take the form of seeing individuals, either new types of people, or everyday people in "new lights" In "An Encounter", the protagonist experiences an encounter with an individual the protagonist would not otherwise know within the daily circle and modalities of that person's life. "Araby" is a fair--and a fair is a carnival of different sights, experiences, smells, and various encounters, the last of which is a pure woman seen in disreputable circumstances. While at "Araby", the young boy sees a woman he has idealized, and is shocked to see her in a more common and base fashion than he envisioned. Thus, "Araby" indicates how moments essentially out of time and routine can be life-transforming, through seasonal, temporal events like a fair. Fairs are discursive spaces, in that one can wander through them. Likewise, the aimless playing in the street of "encountering" someone becomes an education in character, rather than a purposeless, aimless wandering through stimulating yet disconnected experiences and meetings."

More papers on James Joyce:

• Creative Essay # 122961 : "James Joyce's Alcoholism"
• Analytical Essay # 129476 : "James Joyce's "Araby"
• Analytical Essay # 5567 : "James Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"
• Essay # 3298 : "The Character of Maria in "Clay" by James Joyce"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: