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Adrienne Thelen
26 November 2013
ENG 320C
Dr. Johnsen
Essay
Araby: Self Comes to Mind
Grace: Supersizing the Mind
In the short story “Araby” by James Joyce in his collection, Dubliners, the main
character goes through a change throughout the course of the story. As a young boy at
the Christian Brothers’ School, the narrator experienced, what Antonio Damasio calls,
“self comes to mind.”1 His monotonous life consisted of school, play, and an obsession
with the neighbor girl, who the narrator describes as Mangan’s sister. His fixation with
Mangan’s sister is what drives him to change from a love-struck boy to someone who is
tired of the flatness that encompasses his life and desires to change so that his mind
and body could connect.
The narrator creates a puppy-love obsession with Mangan’s sister, who begins to
evade his every thought. “Every morning I lay on the floor in front of the parlour
watching her door,” he says. “When she came out on the doorstep my heart leaped. I
ran to the hall, seized my books and followed her.”2 Mangan’s sister was his self’s
obsession. A part of this obsession was the fact that it was part of his routine. Day in
and day out, it was the same thing. He would watch her get together in the morning and
then follow her to school. After school he would come home and watch her as she
called Mangan into their house. Not only did she evade his daily routine, but also his
thoughts and dreams. “Her image,” he says, “accompanied me even in places the most
1
Damasio, Antonio. Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. New York,
NY: Pantheon Books, 2010.
2 Joyce, James. “Araby.” Dubliners. Edinburgh, Scotland: Riverside Press Limited,
1914. 34.
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hostile to romance.”3 Even in the greatest of chaos, he grew weak and flustered at the
thought of Mangan’s sister. At one point, he claims that his body succumbs to the idea
of the girl. For example:
“Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I
myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell you
why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my
bosom….But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like
fingers running upon the wires.”4
This obsession that overcomes the boy’s self, as well as his mind, have not come
together to create love, or to feel happiness.
The narrator comes home from school one day and Mangan’s sister approaches
him and asks him if he going to the bazaar because she was not going to be able to
make it. The boy will do anything to please the girl and he promised to go to the
bazaar, as well as bringing her back something. All throughout their conversation, the
boy is in a daze. He really does not know what Mangan’s sister is actually saying, but
all he can do is nod his head in agreement and go with whatever she says, wants, and
needs. All he wants is for the girl to notice him and appreciate him like he does her. As
soon as they part and the boy goes home, he cannot help but think of her constantly as
he went through his daily routine of sleep and school. “I had hardly any patience with
the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to
3
4
Ibid. 35.
Ibid. 35.
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me child’s play, ugly monotonous child’s play.”5 This monotony that his self was going
through could not catch up to his mind that was racing with dreams and wishes.
The boy asked his uncle to give him money so that he could go to the bazaar, but
his uncle came home late, making the boy furious. He is unsure of what to do with
himself, so instead of playing with his friends like a normal day, he stares at the window
of Mangan’s sisters’ house obsessively looking for her so that he might get a glimpse of
what all of the fuss over being angry with his uncle was about. Finally his uncle did
arrive and the boy is reminded of his uncle’s belief in the old saying, “Al work and no
play makes Jack a dull boy.”6 This is important in that it parallels the boy’s own life. He
has forgotten how to be creative and play with his friends, all over the work of thinking
about and dreaming about the ‘love’ of his life, Mangan’s sister.
As he went to the bazaar, he became anxious, fearing that the bazaar would be
closed and he would never be able to give the girl a gift like he had promised her.
However, as he began to walk through the bazaar, his feelings changed. He forgot why
he had even gone to the bazaar anyway. He then walked away from the bazaar and
the lights went black.
The boy realized in this trip that his life was monotonous and that the only way to
get rid of his monotony was to forget about Mangan’s sister and do something different
in his daily routine. So, the boy decided not to bring anything home for the girl and got
angry at his self. It is not until this trip to the bazaar that the boy’s self comes to his
mind and he realizes that his obsession with the girl was only contributing to his dull life
and it must be stopped.
5
6
Ibid. 37.
Ibid. 39.
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The boy became angry at himself for his past thoughts. He could not understand
why he let himself get so hung up by a girl and her beauty. “Gazing up into the
darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned
with anguish and anger.”7 How could he have let some beautiful girl get in the way of
what was really important in life by forcing a routine revolved around her. At this point,
his self and mind come together as a working pair. His self gave up the opportunity to
buy the girl a gift and his mind made him realize that this girl was only making him
selfish and self-destructive.
Throughout this story, the main character changed in many ways. His puppy
love turned into an obsession, and then into what he thought was love. James Joyce
illustrates that the narrator’s changes his routine life in search for something more. This
coming of age story for the boy brings the boy’s self and mind together to make himself
happier and more intellectual, just as Antonio Damasio relates in his book, Self Comes
to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain.
In the story “Grace”, a man (who is later found out to be Tom Kernan), falls down
the stairs of a bar and hurts himself, left at the mercy of other bar patrons to save him.
Mr. Kernan is so drunk because he is having troubles at work as commercial traveler.
At this juncture in his life, he has a set-mind. He is stubborn and ornery, as well as
being foul-mouthed at times and poor Catholic. As he gets woken up from the ground
and taken home by Mr. Power, he stumbles upon his words because he had bit his
tongue and there was blood everywhere in his mouth.
7
Ibid. 41.
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Mr. Kernan’s wife tells Mr. Power that her husband is not that devout of a
Catholic because he was once a Protestant and only converted to Catholicism prior to
their marriage, but still it seems he held some Protestant beliefs. Mrs. Kernan is worried
about his drinking, stating that he had “been drinking since Friday.” 8 All Mrs. Kernan
wanted was for her husband to bring home money from work, but Mr. Kernan was too
drunk to do so. Mr. Power senses her struggles, as well as the need for Mr. Kernan to
change himself and become a better person, so he tells Mrs. Kernan, “we’ll make him
turn over a new leaf…We’ll come here one of these nights and talk it over.”9
Tom Kernan’s friends – Mr. Power, Mr. Cunningham, and Mr. M’Coy – all decide
to help Tom to form a new and better life, with a foundation on Catholicism. They form
a plan to trick Tom into coming to a retreat with them under the guidance of Father
Purdon. However, even Mrs. Kernan is skeptical and feels that her husband is too old
to change his mind to become a better Catholic. The men finally get Mr. Kernan to
agree to going to the retreat, telling him, “we’re going to wash the pot together.”10 They
convince him by saying that it is an upper class thing to do and that the priest who is
putting on the retreat, as well as the Pope himself, are Jesuit men who cater towards
the wealthy.
Throughout their convincing, Mr. Kernan is taking a leap into becoming a
changed and improved man. It is at this time where his mind is becoming “supersized”,
just as Andy Clark suggests.11 Mr. Kernan’s outside influences, such as his friends and
Joyce, James. “Grace.” Dubliners. Edinburgh, Scotland: Riverside Press Limited,
1914. 190.
9 Ibid. 190.
10 Ibid. 200.
11 Clark, Andy. Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension.
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wife and his bar injury, are all helping him to become a better person and Catholic,
which will aid him achieving a greater mind.
This change of heart, however, does not change Mr. Kernan completely. There
is one stipulation regarding the retreat that Mr. Kernan will not obey, which is the
holding of candles. He feels these are magical and abide by witchcraft so he will not
use them. Even through the stubbornness, Tom Kernan embraces new ideas in
becoming a better and more pious Catholic like his wife would like him to be, as well as,
hopefully, refraining from drinking as much and becoming violent so that he does not
get injured anymore.
These two stories by James Joyce both show two characters that change greatly
throughout the course of their stories. In Araby, the boy becomes infatuated with
Mangan’s sister, but realizes that the life he is living is not fulfilling and is reliant on
routine, so his self comes to his mind and he realizes what he truly wants and does not
want in life. His obsession with the beautiful girl makes him seem vain, which causes
him to become upset once he realizes his actions were causing him to self-destruct.
This story puts Antonio Damasio’s book Self Comes to Mind in practice through the
changing of the main character. In Grace, Tom Kernan is living a destructing life
caused by drinking, which leads him to hurt himself. His friends, led by Mr. Power,
invite him to a retreat where he can become a better man and a better Catholic, as his
wife hopes him to be. Mr. Kernan is reluctant at first, but has a change of heart and
decides to go to the retreat and become a better man, both as a father and as a
religious layman. As Andy Clark promotes in his book Supersizing the Mind, Mr.
New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2011.
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Kernan uses the outside forces in his life to extend his own mind in order to live a more
fulfilling lifestyle.
Works Cited
Clark, Andy. Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension. New
York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2011.
Damasio, Antonio. Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. New York,
NY: Pantheon Books, 2010.
Joyce, James. “Araby.” Dubliners. Edinburgh, Scotland: Riverside Press Limited, 1914.
33-41.
Joyce, James. “Grace.” Dubliners. Edinburgh, Scotland: Riverside Press Limited, 1914.
184-215.