Araby

To anyone that says James Joyce's story Araby is pointless, I wholeheartedly disagree. Sometimes you don't always need shocking ending to get good literature. I know that in this story no one was shot, stoned to death, or taken away in a "golden chariot", but does that mean this story has less value than the previous stories we discussed in class? Of course not. For me, the best part of this story was the language. I had never read anything by James Joyce and I was enamored by his ability to so accurately describe the feelings of a school-age crush. I think one of the reasons Araby works so well is that it is being told from the perspective of, I would say, a 12 or 13 year old boy. Obviously these feelings are fairly new and when you fall for someone that age, you often fall pretty hard. To the point where this person is crossing your mind more than once during your everyday routine. Is it any wonder that Romeo and Juliet were young teenagers when they tombee amoureux (sorry, my French is horrible). One of my favorite lines from Araby is "But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires." Personally, the stories that stay with me the longest are the ones that eloquently describe these universal human emotions in a way that I never could. The context may be different, but the emotional experience is always the same.