James Joyce is a beloved Irish writer famous for books like Ulysses and Dubliners. It is also a well-known fact that James Joyce was, well, a pervert. The love letters sent between James Joyce and his wife, Nora Barnacle are filled with graphic details of their intimacy. Although the letters from Nora to Joyce aren’t recovered, the language in Joyce’s letters are shocking even to the modern eye. They are filled with depictions of their sexual relationship, even talking about his love of farts. James Joyce was a man who was fascinated with sexual and sensual love. This fascination can also be found in one of his short stories, Araby.
Arabyis the story of a boy and his first love. What is interesting to note is that we don’t know much about Mangan’s sister, the subject of his love, other than her appearance and body. We don’t even know her name and she is defined with her relationship with another male character. Of course, this can be interpreted with a feministic point of view of how women in literature are only used as sexual props. That is true for this story. However, the reason Mangan’s sister for this is not because James Joyce is a sexist pig but because that is how the boy sees her.
The boy’s love towards Mangan’s sister was sexual. She was the reason behind his sexual awakening and the boy was fascinated with her in a sensual way. In Araby, all mentions of Mangan’s sister are accompanied by descriptions of her figure or her body.
This is a characteristic that isn’t found in Joyce’s other short stories like Evelin and An Encounter. As we are looking at Mangan’s sister through the eyes of the boy, we are following his sight along her body. (Similar to the male gaze in The Postman Always Rings Twice
) We first meet Mangan’s sister by looking at “her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door.” Later, as we are spying on Mangan’s sister with the boy, “[he] kept her brown figure always in [his] eye”. When Mangan’s sister first spoke to the boy, he is focused on her body and how “the light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. It fell over one side of her dress and caught the white border of a petticoat, just visible as she stood ease.”
However, influenced by Joyce’s own views on sexual love, the erotic love the boy feels is portrayed as something beautiful. Their relationship is portrayed as “[his] body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.” Masturbation to the thought of Mangan’s sister is depicted similar to praying. She is the goddess that gives him enlightenment and light.
Well done and very frank. I think reading some of his letters to Nora definitely adds more to reading his work in general, and it shows what "might" be just beyond his vague yet subtle uses of imagery. I do think there is some definite sexual energy at work in the boy, but I think he is mostly lovesick and confused (at first happily) by these new impressions. He worships her as a goddess (even standing below her at the step like a Greek Odysseus looking up at Aphrodite before receiving her help on a quest for a holy treasure (a gift from Araby). Some interpret his disappointment as a nationalist jab at Ireland as a "nation as whore" rather than a "nation as mother" in how the shop keeper seemingly allows herself to be a specimen to two British guys. All that in one sentence? Really? And that is what Joyce intended.
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