Question

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 neighbors in a square ground. The other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces.
A: The boys being set free symbolizes them being free from the rules of the church.
B :The uninhabited house represents the narrator's feeling of emptiness.
C: The blind street symbolizes the aimless and drab life on North Richmond Street.
D: The consciousness of decent lives symbolizes a comparison of neighbors' lives.
select all correct answers

Answer 1

The correct answer is option A and option C.  In the excerpt, the "school setting the kids free" symbolizes the boys being set free from Church and its impositions. The blind street symbolizes the aimless and drab life on North Richmond Street. Araby is a short story written by James Choice and published on 1914. It is the story of how a boy gets infatuated with a girl, that he wants to buy her a present from the Araby Bazaar. The story is filled with religious and church symbolism. When the narrator says that "North Richmond Street is blind" he is expressing the aimless and dull lifestyle of the community, immersed in religion. He is using the street as a representation of his community and how detached he finds himself from it, as his faith is dying.

Answer 2

Answer:

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

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

Explanation:

B.The narrator , who  is a schoolboy, feels the routine and the aimless life of "brown" Dublin. He observes this dull lifestyle in the people from the Street and, also, in his uncle. All of them are attached to their routines. This makes the narrator feel empty.

C- The fact that the street is blind means that the poeple from Dublin are so inmersed in their routines that they cannot  see any other alternative for a better or more meaningful life. The narrator is the one who expresses his need to escape from this dullness. He thinks he has fallen in love with a girl , but then, he thinks this infatuation has just been an illusion.