A Post-colonial Study of the Short Story “Araby” (1914) by James Joyce

Abstract

The short story of “Araby” by James Joyce was published in 1914 in Dubliners which is a collection of fifteen short stories set in the Dublin city of Northern Ireland. “Araby” is one of those short stories in which traces of the colonization of Ireland by the Great Britain in the nineteenth century can be found. Since the context of the short story is set in Dublin, analyzing it in light of post-colonial theory has made it a special case. Because despite the majority of literary works which are analyzed in light of post-colonial theory and in which the contrast between east and west geographically is quite visible, in “Araby” this contrast is not clear-cut and the culture of two neighbor countries are so close and as a consequent so difficult to claim cultural and religious colonization by a neighbor country. This essay investigates the way Joyce has portrayed the cultural, political, economic and social domination of Britain over Ireland, specifically Dublin. The essay also explores the context where Joyce had the motivation to write Dubliners and shows the fundamental principles of post-colonialism such as language, the notion of superior/inferior, cultural polyvalency, Self/Other and the critical tenets of Homi K. Bhabha including mimicry, liminality or hybridity and finds these tenets within this short story. The essay also investigates the way James Joyce has employed symbolism in order to portray his reaction to the domination of Britain over Ireland.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2017.v8n2p201