EPIPHANIES

The story Araby by James Joyce opens with a description of North Richmond Street as a "blind...quiet street" with a sense of everything being the same and lifeless, sort of decaying in a way, because a priest had died and he took a sense of hope with him. "The former tenant of our house, a priest, had died in the back drawing-room..." There were a few paper-covered books, legacies that the priest had left behind. The narrator of this story is the young boy, who spends every morning laying on the floor in the front parlour watching Mangan's sister, not once speaking to her except for some casual exchange of words. At the slightest mentions of her name, Joyce uses descriptive words to allow the readers to get a feel of the impact the girl had on the boy. She had become a goddess like figure to him that he desired. When he went with his aunt marketing, he had imagined walking with Mangan's sister and protecting her. "These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined ... My eyes were often full of tears and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom." Joyce hints the epiphany in the story, that is, the boy is unable to talk to her dealing with the pain of love, but when he is alone, he has fantasies of what it would be like to be with her and he murmurs to himself: "O love! O love!"

When the girl finally spoke to him, she asks him if he was going to Araby. She sort of hints to him that from this conversation, she's trying to get something out of it, but he is caught up in his "love" for her that he does not realize it. She says she would love to go but can't, and he wanted to buy her something from there if he went. The boy thought that if he buys her a gift from the bazaar, she would see how much he cares for her and it will prove his love for her. When the boy gets to the bazaar, he arrives late and notices that nearly all the stalls were closed and the hall was in darkness. This image of a place that was suppose to be spectacular, possibly a place that could help express love for some people, turned into a place that was half closed, disappointing, and dirty. The place foreshadowed a sense of death, with the darkness taking over.

The epiphany is now further supported when the boy says "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger." His dream, his quest, his hope to capture this girl's heart and crushes and comes to an end when he realized that doing all of this for the girl won't make her love him. He is faced with reality and realizes that the whole time, he just created false hope in a world he wished came true. The boy's spiritual paralysis made him become blinded by what he perceived as a romantic first love and filled himself with false hope.

In Eveline by James Joyce, he introduces a female character named Eveline who is faced with the decision of living at home with her father, or leaving to start a new life. Eveline's mother had passed away and her father does not trust her with anything and will not allow her to live on her own. Eveline's paralysis is the fact that she cannot let go of the past, of her connection with her home and her father, and she can't stand up for herself. She proves her father's point of her inability to live on her own. Eveline resulted in leaving her lover and staying in her hometown continuing to live with her father. When Eveline's mother had passed away, the words "Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!" constantly replayed in her head causing her to stand up in a sudden impulse of terror and wanting to escape. The use of such terms like "save her" and "happiness" crates a sense religious moments which can lead to spiritual/religious epiphanies. Eveline's inability to escape caused her to realize that she does not truly want to escape her hometown either because it was where all the good and bad moments in her life happened and where her family and life truly was.

FROM ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE

During the car ride home, Lucy couldn't help but feel so aggravated. David would never understand, and can never understand what she is possibly going through. How could he when he never even realized the impact he had made on Melanie's life? "Lucy, it could be so simple. Close down the kennels. Do it at once. Lock up the house, pay Petrus to guard it. Take a break for six months or a year, until things have improved in this country. Go overseas. Go to Holland. I'll pay. When you come back you can take stock, make a fresh start." Lucy does not understand how those words were coming out of his mouth. How can he say it's so simple? Was that not where he was at fault in the beginning? Had he not learn that he can not just pick up and leave as if nothing had happened? Did it never occur to him how what he had done might have impacted Melanie's life?

"If I leave now, David, I won't come back. Thank you for the offer, but it won't work. There is nothing you can suggest that I haven't been through a hundred times myself."

"Then what do you propose to do?"

"I don't know. But whatever I decide I want to decide by myself without being pushed. There are things you just don't understand.

"What don't I understand?" Lucy sat dumbfounded. What does he know about women?

"To begin with, you don't understand what happened to me on that day. You are concerned for my sake, which I appreciate, you think you understand, but finally you don't. Because you can't."

How can a man, her father, who committed almost the same crime as these three men, even have the slightest connection to how a woman would feel? How can he possibly understand how difficult it must be for a woman and all the complications that arises due to their actions? The many questions that run through Lucy's mind causes her so much anger and frustration, yet David continues to voice his opinions and things from his perspectives.

Analysis:

The novel is told centering around David Lurie and helps readers see things from his perspective. His relationship with Lucy is a test and also a mirror reflection trying to hint and remind him of his own life. From this short passage on page 157, one can see that David Lurie is persistent and pushy, and assumes he knows what's best for Lucy and how to handle the situation. On the other hand, Lucy is trying to remind him of his position in society and what he has done, who he has become. Her situation becomes a mirror reflection of David's incident with Melanie. She tries to remind him about how he picked up and left to the country, and what good that has done- what has it solved? How can he know what's best for Lucy if he didn't realize how hard it must have been for Melanie?

"Hatred...When it comes to men and sex, David, nothing surprises me any more. Maybe, for men, hating the woman makes sex more exciting. You are a man, you ought to know.(158)" Lucy wants to remind David that he's a man, and she's a woman, he can't personally know what is good for a woman and how to deal with things. He only has a opinion and his own perspective of how a woman's life is. He can't physically experience what she had to experience, he can't live her life for a day, so he has no right to say it's simple.

"And I did nothing. I did not save you." That is his own confession (157).

When it came to Lucy, David becomes a parent again, he worries, he cares, he even admit his own wrong. As we can see later on, his relationship with Lucy reflected how he must have misunderstood and mistreated Melanie, and how he has to own up to his own mistake- and admit he was wrong. He also comes to realize he has no right to try and control the lives of women and has to learn to let them do as they please, but only worry and try to help. He had learned to let go of Lucy, just as he had learned to let go of his favorite dog. Keeping the dog for another week would not have done any good to the dog except let the pain linger and create false hope for survival. Pushing Lucy and holding onto her as if she was a child would only cause him to misunderstand her more and holding onto her would only cause him false hope of trying to control her life and grasping that power that he began to lose.

David Lurie

In Coetzee's novel Disgrace, David Lurie is a fifty-two year old man who has been divorced twice, a communications professor, and teaches Romantics. He was content with his life when he had Soroya as a part of it- until she left. He met a girl named Melanie Issacs- who is in his class- one day and tries to lure her into his home and this is where everything changed. Soroya and Melanie were the two girls who have grown on David Lurie and who he "cared" about. When Soroya left, Lurie called for her and wanted to see her. When Melanie no longer showed up for class or talked to him, he would call her. He believed that a woman's beauty does not belong to her alone and should be shared, and his character shifts from being a womanizer to someone who begins to worry and "care" about others, thought it is not straightforward.

David Lurie's affair with Melanie was discovered and Lurie was faced with the option of admitting he was wrong and take on counseling; however, he chose to resign on his own and plead guilty. When Melanie was not in his class for the test, he gave her a 70%, neither good nor bad. When Melanie did not show up for the hearing, the first thing that he asked was whether or not she was attending. He shows he cares about Melanie because whenever she was not present in class, he would wonder what had happen to her, and he also allowed her to stay with him- which was a big shift from the beginning of the novel because he mentioned that he would love to spend a night with a lady but spend the morning after with her.

David leaves to the countryside to stay with his lesbian daughter. He does not approve of his daughter's relationship with another woman but looks past it as long as she's happy. He also come across Bev Shaw who is another woman he immediately dislikes and finds unappealing; however, he learns to look past it and helps her out with the dogs. His stay has made himself and Lucy kind of learn to accept one another. David develops even more after the incident of the rape, realizing that a woman should not be treated that way and does not understand why Lucy will not just tell the truth. This incident also made David realize what he had done to Melanie was wrong and felt the need to apologize.

David Lurie was once a womanizer, a man who did not care about what others say or think or feel, and tries to take the easy way out. Now, David Lurie, a man who had to live through life with shame and guilt- disgrace- to come to a realization of all that he has done, became a man who has a heart, who cared about others and who learns to do the right thing. He apologizes to Melanie's family and after putting his favorite dog to sleep, burst into tears.