English Advanced: Related text 'Araby' Speech

[elewisdando]

This is a speech responding to the statement: "The best texts challenge our assumptions about the human experience". Any feedback would be so great, please be harsh Thank you!!


Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Elisabeth and Darcy. Jim and Pam. I’m sure you know these people, because as a society, we’re obsessed with love, with most people considering the pursuit of it to be noble and fulfilling. However, James Joyce thought differently and challenged this perception with his short story, Araby, representing it instead as a manifestation of vanity which leads to a lower quality of life. Through this inversion of assumptions about the human experience of love, the narrative gains merit, placing it amongst the best texts. Araby’s commentary on the pursuit of love mainly revolves around it’s vanity and the way that it affects our lives. So, I’ll start with discussing the vanity



Now, James Joyce utilises his main characters to represent the superficial nature of the pursuit of love, through his frequent physical descriptions of his would-be lover and the subversion of paradigms.

Throughout his whole text, the main character is never named, and his love interest is only referred to as “Mangan’s sister”, by literally stripping them of their names, he symbolically strips them of their identity as well. As a result, these characters could be anyone, which creates a sense of universality in this text, and therefore allows him to use these characters to critique the common, superficial approach to pursuing love.

He demonstrates this through the characters descriptions of Mangan’s sister, all purely based off of physical observations. For example, when he first spoke to her, instead of describing her voice or thoughts, he describes how the “ lamp… caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there” and continues on while. This vivid imagery reflects his shallow appreciation of her through only recognising her exterior. This is further represented by the symbolism of her being obscurely lit by a lamp, mirroring how little he knows about her as a person. This is even further critiqued through the use of the motif of the colour brown, which describes the love interest, like when the protagonist refers to her as a “brown-clad figure”. Through this sustained association of her with brown, a colour which typically invokes feelings of wholesomeness and warmth, Joyce demonstrates how he has assigned her personal traits based on superficial observations. This use of description critiques the superficial manner in which people fall in love, where people don’t care or feel the need to learn about a person, and instead are satisfied with aesthetics.

To further challenge the assumption that love is noble, Joyce subverts the paradigm of the hero’s journey. After going through obstacles to reach the market, instead of succeeding and finding love,  he has an epiphany in which he refers to himself as “a creature driven and derided by vanity”. He abases himself as a creature in the passive voice, highlighting the strong and, in his perspective, shameful effect that this pursuit has had on him, equating them with vanity. This anti-climatic ending subverts the audience’s expectations of the story, and therefore challenge’s them to consider their assumptions about the nobility of the pursuit of love.

Through the lens of his universal characters, Joyce uses vivid imagery and subversive structure in order to challenge the assumption that the pursuit of love is noble, and assert that it is often vain and superficial.



James Joyce challenges the assumption that the pursuit of love is fulfilling, asserting that it serves to isolate oneself from friendships and therefore decrease quality of life and instead asserts the importance of friendship.

Towards the beginning of the narrative, the protagonist reflects on his time playing with friends, remarking how “their shouts echoed in the silent street”. By having the shouts of people dominate the silence, an absence of noise traditionally invoking fear or a sense of loneliness, Joyce highlights the important role that friendship can have in conquering difficult emotional circumstances and leading a fulfilling life.  This importance is then further demonstrated when he isolates himself from these friendships.

After speaking to his love interest, our protagonist spends his time staring out at her house, and having his friends’ “cries reach (him), weakened and indistinct”. When contrasted to when these cries “echoed in the silent street”, his previous circumstances are inverted, with his silent pursuit of Mangan’s sister taking precedence over the cries of his friends, insinuating that this prioritisation is not a natural or good decision, and foreshadowing the negative consequences of this isolation.

These negative consequences are then showcased on his ride to Araby. To get there he “took (his) seat in a third-class carriage on a deserted train”, this use of imagery highlights his isolation that he undertook in order to go, and the poor circumstances he finds himself in by being in a “third-class” carriage, the lowest quality and least enjoyable class of train, and overall creates a pitiful perspective of the protagonist, inviting the audience to sympathise with him and reconsider whether this journey was worthwhile. Joyce uses this train journey to symbolise his pursuit of Mangan’s sister, reflecting the difficult and harmful nature of this endeavour.

Joyce asserts that the pain gone through during a pursuit of love is often worthless and unfulfilling, as expressed by his use of an anti-climatic ending. In the final lines of the text, the protagonist allows “two pennies to fall against the sixpence in his pocket”, employing the low-modality language, allowed, which creates a lackluster and disappointing tone. The disappointment the reader feels mimicks the often disappointing endings when searching for love and challenges their assumptions about the ability to fulfil that they believe relationships have.

Joyce rejects the assumption that love is fulfilling, and expresses the notion that the pursuit of love can lead self-isolation from important friendships and pain that will not have a satisfying result.



James Joyce’s “Araby” rejects the common belief that the pursuit of love is noble and fulfilling, and employs imagery, subversion, contrast and symbolism, among other literary devices to portray it as something often superficial and vain, which causes self-isolation and lowers quality of life for little or no reward. Reading this narrative will challenge your assumptions, and implore you to examine your own attitudes toward love, which, in my opinion, makes it a worthwhile text and places it amongst the best texts.

[kauac]

This is a speech responding to the statement: "The best texts challenge our assumptions about the human experience". Any feedback would be so great, please be harsh Thank you!!


Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Elisabeth and Darcy. Jim and Pam. I’m sure you know these people, because as a society, we’re obsessed with love, with most people considering the pursuit of it to be noble and fulfilling. However, James Joyce thought differently and challenged this perception with his short story, Araby, representing it instead as a manifestation of vanity which leads to a lower quality of life. Through this inversion of assumptions about the human experience of love, the narrative gains merit, placing it amongst the best texts. Araby’s commentary on the pursuit of love mainly revolves around it’s vanity and the way that it affects our lives. So, I’ll start with discussing the vanity



Now, James Joyce utilises his main characters to represent the superficial nature of the pursuit of love, through his frequent physical descriptions of his would-be lover and the subversion of paradigms.

Throughout his whole text, the main character is never named, and his love interest is only referred to as “Mangan’s sister”, by literally stripping them of their names, he symbolically strips them of their identity as well. As a result, these characters could be anyone, which creates a sense of universality in this text, and therefore allows him to use these characters to critique the common, superficial approach to pursuing love.

He demonstrates this through the characters descriptions of Mangan’s sister, all purely based off of physical observations. For example, when he first spoke to her, instead of describing her voice or thoughts, he describes how the “ lamp… caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there” and continues on while. This vivid imagery reflects his shallow appreciation of her through only recognising her exterior. This is further represented by the symbolism of her being obscurely lit by a lamp, mirroring how little he knows about her as a person. This is even further critiqued through the use of the motif of the colour brown, which describes the love interest, like when the protagonist refers to her as a “brown-clad figure”. Through this sustained association of her with brown, a colour which typically invokes feelings of wholesomeness and warmth, Joyce demonstrates how he has assigned her personal traits based on superficial observations. This use of description critiques the superficial manner in which people fall in love, where people don’t care or feel the need to learn about a person, and instead are satisfied with aesthetics.

To further challenge the assumption that love is noble, Joyce subverts the paradigm of the hero’s journey. After going through obstacles to reach the market, instead of succeeding and finding love,  he has an epiphany in which he refers to himself as “a creature driven and derided by vanity”. He abases himself as a creature in the passive voice, highlighting the strong and, in his perspective, shameful effect that this pursuit has had on him, equating them with vanity. This anti-climatic ending subverts the audience’s expectations of the story, and therefore challenge’s them to consider their assumptions about the nobility of the pursuit of love.

Through the lens of his universal characters, Joyce uses vivid imagery and subversive structure in order to challenge the assumption that the pursuit of love is noble, and assert that it is often vain and superficial.



James Joyce challenges the assumption that the pursuit of love is fulfilling, asserting that it serves to isolate oneself from friendships and therefore decrease quality of life and instead asserts the importance of friendship.

Towards the beginning of the narrative, the protagonist reflects on his time playing with friends, remarking how “their shouts echoed in the silent street”. By having the shouts of people dominate the silence, an absence of noise traditionally invoking fear or a sense of loneliness, Joyce highlights the important role that friendship can have in conquering difficult emotional circumstances and leading a fulfilling life.  This importance is then further demonstrated when he isolates himself from these friendships.

After speaking to his love interest, our protagonist spends his time staring out at her house, and having his friends’ “cries reach (him), weakened and indistinct”. When contrasted to when these cries “echoed in the silent street”, his previous circumstances are inverted, with his silent pursuit of Mangan’s sister taking precedence over the cries of his friends, insinuating that this prioritisation is not a natural or good decision, and foreshadowing the negative consequences of this isolation.

These negative consequences are then showcased on his ride to Araby. To get there he “took (his) seat in a third-class carriage on a deserted train”, this use of imagery highlights his isolation that he undertook in order to go, and the poor circumstances he finds himself in by being in a “third-class” carriage, the lowest quality and least enjoyable class of train, and overall creates a pitiful perspective of the protagonist, inviting the audience to sympathise with him and reconsider whether this journey was worthwhile. Joyce uses this train journey to symbolise his pursuit of Mangan’s sister, reflecting the difficult and harmful nature of this endeavour.

Joyce asserts that the pain gone through during a pursuit of love is often worthless and unfulfilling, as expressed by his use of an anti-climatic ending. In the final lines of the text, the protagonist allows “two pennies to fall against the sixpence in his pocket”, employing the low-modality language, allowed, which creates a lackluster and disappointing tone. The disappointment the reader feels mimicks the often disappointing endings when searching for love and challenges their assumptions about the ability to fulfil that they believe relationships have.

Joyce rejects the assumption that love is fulfilling, and expresses the notion that the pursuit of love can lead self-isolation from important friendships and pain that will not have a satisfying result.



James Joyce’s “Araby” rejects the common belief that the pursuit of love is noble and fulfilling, and employs imagery, subversion, contrast and symbolism, among other literary devices to portray it as something often superficial and vain, which causes self-isolation and lowers quality of life for little or no reward. Reading this narrative will challenge your assumptions, and implore you to examine your own attitudes toward love, which, in my opinion, makes it a worthwhile text and places it amongst the best texts.

Hi...

Overall, you have written some good quality stuff!
Your textual evidence and analysis is thorough, and you relate to human experiences effectively. You have engaged with the question well - not only agreeing with it, but also expanding on it and adding in your own ideas.

Here's two main issues I think you will need to address:
1. It reads more like an essay than a speech. A great way to counteract this is b]by adding more literary techniques (not for your evidence, but for your audience's engagement). Experiment with some rhetoric, as it is a speech. Perhaps also look over your word choice and see if it addresses your target audience. If your target audience is your classmates, then try and match your speech vocab with the vocab you would use everyday. 

2. Some of your sentences are way too long for a speech. An easy fix here. Practice reading your speech out loud, and if there are any sentences that do not flow well because of the length, then shorten them. You want your audience to be following on with your points, which becomes increasingly harder if the sentences become too long and disjointed.

I have attached some more specific feedback in the word document. Again, I think you have done very well already, but your speech will definitely need some polishing. Hope this helps. 

[elewisdando]

Thank you so much!