Araby: Style 1 key example

Key Examples in Araby

Style
Explanation and Analysis:

As a Modernist writer, James Joyce’s style is centered on realism. In tying to capture the bleak reality of the young narrator’s working-class life in Dublin, Joyce opts for telling the story in the first-person point of view, using evocative—and often depressing—imagery. The narrator describes houses as “somber,” lamps as “feeble,” the sounds of the Dublin streets as “shrill litanies.” All of these stylistic choices underline the narrator’s disillusionment with the world, a common characteristic of Modernist literature.