Abstract

Araby, the third short story selected from Dubliners by James Joyce, demonstrates to us the disillusionment of a boy and a paralysed wilderness pervading in Dublin by telling the story of a boy’s seeking for his first love. This paper aims to analyze and appreciate the symbols regarding the setting, religion and characters in Araby and ends with the conclusion that the ingenious use of symbols in Araby contributes immensely to the manifestation of the theme of the short story—the paralysis pervading in Dublin and the revelation of the inevitable disillusionment of the boy’s dream under such an environment.

Key words: Araby bazaar, symbol, spiritual paralysis, disillusionment, Dublin

摘 要

《阿拉比》是詹姆斯•乔伊斯的短篇小说集《都柏林人》中的第三篇，通过讲述男孩追求爱情的故事，展示了瘫痪的都柏林和男孩理想爱情的幻灭。本文旨在赏析《阿拉比》中有关背景、宗教和人物的象征，从而得出结论：《阿拉比》中象征手法的巧妙运用有助于深刻地揭示主题——瘫痪的都柏林，以及揭示男孩在这种环境下理想幻灭的必然性。

关键词：阿拉比市场；象征；精神瘫痪；理想幻灭；都柏林

1.    Introduction
     It is undeniable that James Joyce is one of the most important writers in the 20th century. Born in Dublin, the capital of Ireland, he is acknowledged as the master of modernism and a prodigy of innovative talent in literary creation. James Joyce greatly employs the technique of “stream-of-consciousness” in his writing, and his literary accomplishment is largely characterized by the combination of modernism and symbolism. His masterworks include Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnega’s Wake, of which Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories, and the others are long novels. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, his first novel, is “largely autobiographical relating his experiences from infancy to early manhood, and describing how he discovered his career as an artist”. Ulysses is a typical example of stream of consciousness technique, which is entirely told through “the natural flow of the inner thoughts of the three characters and with a frankness never seen before in literature”. Finnega’s Wake, his last novel, has such a complicated and vague meaning that it remains a mystery.