A Closer View: “Araby” And “The Duchess And The Jeweler”

A Closer View: “Araby” And “The Duchess And The Jeweler”

There are many short stories in today’s world of literature. Some are written in first person, others in third. Some focus on personal issues, others on the issues of society. Point being is… all short stories are different, and no two stories are exactly the same. However, in analyzing “Araby” by James Joyce, and “The Duchess and the Jeweler” by Virginia Woolf, we come to realize that as different as these two stories are, they have more common themes than one would expect.   “Araby”, written in first person, focuses on a somewhat naïve boy who likes a girl across the street, and in the end realizes that she is beyond his reach. “The Duchess and the Jeweler”, on the other hand, is portrayed in third person and is about a rich man who believes he has reached his potential and has solved the mystery of life, when suddenly he gets conned by an astute woman in need of money. How, one may ask, can two stories with such different themes have anything in common? There is no simple answer to a question like that, but as we examine the two stories closer, it just may answer itself.               The idea of self discovery is vivid in both stories. In “Araby” the main character is going through the process of finding himself and he is not yet certain about anything. He believes in the beginning that he likes a girl, but towards the end he is disillusioned and realizes that perhaps he was wrong about her, but most importantly his feelings towards her. Towards the end of the story he is, although “driven and derided by vanity” (1028), is a new person who has learned a lesson that he will (hopefully) remember for the rest of his life.   Similarly, in the “Duchess and the Jeweler”, Oliver Bacon, aka the Jeweler, is one of the richest men on Earth, “But he dismantled himself often and became a little boy in the dark alley.” (1048). He constantly reminded himself of how he was struggling for social status as a poor child living on the...