Araby, James Joyce | John J. Brugaletta and Mary H. Hayden (essay date 1978)

John J. Brugaletta and Mary H. Hayden (essay date 1978)

SOURCE: “The Motivation for Anguish in Joyce's ‘Araby’,” in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 15, No. 1, Winter, 1978, pp. 11–17.

[In the following essay, Brugaletta and Hayden question important plot elements of “Araby.”]

In his discussion of James Joyce's “Araby,” Epifanio San Juan, Jr. contributes to Joyce studies a predominantly valid discussion of plot.1 We agree with San Juan in his assumption of the “relevance and qualified validity of all the existing interpretations of ‘Araby.’”2 Our only disagreement with this critic's view of the story—our point of departure from that of other critics who have discussed the story—is in the evidently universal assumption that the one crucial conversation between the narrator and Mangan's sister actually took place.3 “The boy promised Mangan's sister to bring her a gift,”...

[The entire page is 3769 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

Lookup any word on eNotes with our dictionary. Highlight the word and press SHIFT + D for a definition, or SHIFT + T for a synonym.