Overall Task: Using your analysis of key passages from the story, address the specific task for the story. Make sure that you specifically address the task!
Specific Task: Explore the epiphany that the young boy has in James Joyce’s “Araby.” In order to do this, you must analyze (a) the mundane world that he lives in, (b) how his infatuation for the young girl seems to offer him an escape from that mundane world, and (c) his epiphany at the end of the story when he realizes the foolishness of his infatuation.
Textual Analysis: Make sure that you analyze the text of the story. You do not need to analyze
everything, but you should definitely quote significant passages and explain them.
Structure:
A formal introduction that (a) establishes the nature / plot of the short story (very brief summary) and
introduces the themes and/or literary style and (b) provides a thesis that specifically asserts your
conclusion about the importance of those themes and/or literary styles.
“Araby” – the theme of a young boy who tries to escape the mundane word of Dublin only to
end up having an epiphany in which he faces the foolishness of his infatuation.
Your body paragraphs must explore the nature of “those themes” / “that literary style” by specifically
analyzing the text. Do not just retell the story. You are exploring the actual language of the text and
showing how the theme/literary style works. SHOW us … do NOT just tell us.
Your conclusion must be a conclusion that comes from your analysis of the story’s text and your
discussion of how the theme and/or literary style relates to the overall story and then specifically
concludes what the importance of the themes and/or literary styles is.
