world lit journal_yewon

  Rating: 8/10 ‘Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.’ If I have to pick the most memorable sentence in ‘Araby’, I will choose this one. The boy, who is the main character of this story, goes to Araby to buy a present for Mangun’s sister. However, it was not the fancy bazaar that he expected, and the little child in reality was shabbier than expected. The experience of visiting Araby has a symbolic meaning that it was the first time he faces the reality. He started full of confidence that he’ll buy her a present, but in front of reality, he was just young and shabby. Based on the miserable emotion, he expresses anger by calling himself a "creature." Perhaps the child will remember this day for a long time even when he grows up. That’s what Epiphany is all about.

 Rating: 6/10 The introduction of ‘the sisters’ represents the relationship between Flynn and me based on the present point of view. And when the protagonist visited her home after her death, he heard the bride's past story and the story ended. After reading the latter part, I didn't understand much at first. I wondered what was the ‘Holy Grail’ that he broke, why he broke it and fell into a great shock, and why people said that the child he was with was wrong. But I couldn't answer clearly to these questions. And the interpretation that Flynn was a pedophile came as a shock to me. It is also a work that made me realize that even if all the people read the same story, we can interpret it as different contents from various perspectives.