Question

Select all the correct answers. What symbolism is found in this excerpt from James Joyce's "Araby"? North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free. An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground. The other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces. The boys being set free symbolizes them being free from the rules of the church. The uninhabited house represents the narrator's feeling of emptiness. The blind street symbolizes the aimless and drab life on North Richmond Street. The consciousness of decent lives symbolizes a comparison of neighbors' lives.

Answer 1

The Symbolism which are found in this excerpt from James Joyce's "Araby" are as follows:

The boys being set free symbolizes them being free from the rules of the church.

The narrator of the story “Araby” is found surrounded by the Catholic ideas. He and his friends all have witnessed their upbringing amidst religion. Though the story does not highlight the extent to which the narrator believes in the religion, he is seen many time explaining things and situations through Catholic ideas and imagery.

The uninhabited house represents the narrator's feeling of emptiness.

Since the narrator had studied in an all-boys school, he finds the absence of girls in his life during his journey of adulthood. The dullness and emptiness of the streets of Dublin add on to his loneliness.

The blind street symbolizes the aimless and drab life on North Richmond Street.

Life in the streets of Dublin had been dull and brown for the narrator as he finds no joy there. The life of the people in the city Dublin had grown dull and single-sided from which the narrator wants to escape. Through Mangan’s sister, the narrator finds a mental escape and the ‘bazaar’ of Araby gives him a physical escape from his dull, boring and brown life.