Ecocriticism InPostcards To Columbus, By James Joyce

Was Columbus the hero of tradition, or was he, in fact, the greedy inconsiderate lout that is being presented by today's revisionist historians? This paper will examine both sides of this controversial issue and attempt to discern the validity of the common arguments for and against, so the reader may arrive at an informed conclusion.

The letter Christopher Columbus wrote back to Spain to report his findings in the New World sparked intrigued me and sparked my imagination. Why I have been so absorbed in this letter I can not explain. This letter is supposed to be about describing an unknown land, a land that has not been seen by anyone besides the natives, but it seems that there is more to it than that. Columbus is known in elementary schools as the man who found the New World, and is regarded as a hero. To the contrary, historians who have done more research on Columbus say that he was driven by fame and fortune and that he was tyrannical in his ways with the indigenous peoples of the places that he came to find. I feel that the contradictory tones Columbus uses

Jack Weatherford in his essay “Examining the Reputation of Christopher Columbus” proposes the idea that Columbus was not the person who people believe to have accomplished all the things we were told about him at a young age. Weatherford's determination and his persuasiveness can be seen with his use of emotional diction, fluid tone, and the logos juxtaposition of Columbus’s events with others.

In "Araby" by James Joyce, the narrator uses vivid imagery in order to express feelings and situations. The story evolves around a boy's adoration of a girl he refers to as "Mangan's sister" and his promise to her that he shall buy her a present if he goes to the Araby bazaar. Joyce uses visual images of darkness and light as well as the exotic in order to suggest how the boy narrator attempts to achieve the inaccessible. Accordingly, Joyce is expressing the theme of the boys exaggerated desire through the images which are exotic. The theme of "Araby" is a boy's desire to what he cannot achieve.

The year Columbus set out to sail was the historical beginning of a bad ending. This ending should be acknowledged by all as the choices and decisions of the Spanish King and Queen Ferdinand and Isabella. Without the royal’s greediness, there would have been a different ending to this story that wouldn’t have resulted in the complete obliteration of foreign human beings--genocide.

In her story, "Araby," James Joyce concentrates on character rather than on plot to reveal the ironies inherent in self-deception. On one level "Araby" is a story of initiation, of a boy’s quest for the ideal. The quest ends in failure but results in an inner awareness and a first step into manhood. On another level the story consists of a grown man's remembered experience, for the story is told in retrospect by a man who looks back to a particular moment of intense meaning and insight. As such, the boy's experience is not restricted to youth's encounter with first love. Rather, it is a portrayal of a continuing problem all through life: the incompatibility of the ideal, of the dream

Expectations and reality consistently oppose one another for numerous situations in one’s lifetime. Humans tend to desire something and act to obtain it. Although, what is expected may not always occur thus the result is mostly disappointment but, a lesson is usually learnt. This is explicitly presented in the short story “Araby”, by James Joyce, which is a short story released in 1914 as a collection comprised of 15 stories named Dubliners. Through the first-person point of view of a boy, the story emphasizes a prime example of how reality does not agree with expectations. This unnamed boy transitions from a playful individual to a person in love with the sister of his closest friend.

In James Joyce’s short story "Araby," the main character is a young boy who confuses obsession with love. This boy thinks he is in love with a young girl, but all of his thoughts, ideas, and actions show that he is merely obsessed. Throughout this short story, there are many examples that show the boy’s obsession for the girl. There is also evidence that shows the boy does not really understand love or all of the feelings that go along with it.

The story “Araby” as told by James Joyce is about a young boy that is fascinated with the girl across the street. But deeper down the story is about a very lonely boy lusting for her love and affection. Throughout the story, we see how the frustration of first love, isolation and high expectations breaks the main character emotionally and physically. James Joyce uses the first-person viewpoint to tell this story which helps influence the plot, characterization, themes, and understanding of the main character.

Although "Araby" is a fairly short story, author James Joyce does a remarkable job of discussing some very deep issues within it. On the surface it appears to be a story of a boy's trip to the market to get a gift for the girl he has a crush on. Yet deeper down it is about a lonely boy who makes a pilgrimage to an eastern-styled bazaar in hopes that it will somehow alleviate his miserable life. James Joyce's uses the boy in "Araby" to expose a story of isolation and lack of control. These themes of alienation and control are ultimately linked because it will be seen that the source of the boy's emotional distance is his lack of control over his life.

“Araby,” is a story of emotional passion carefully articulated by the author, James Joyce, to mark the end of childhood and the start of adolescence. It is told from the perspective of a young boy who is filled with lust for his friend, Mangan’s, sister. He lives in a cheerless town on a street hosting simply complacent families who own brown faced houses that stare vacantly into one another. The boy temporarily detaches himself from this gloomy atmosphere and dwells on the keeper of his affection. Only when he journeys to a festival titled Araby, does he realize that his attempt at winning the heart of Mangan’s sister has been done in an act of vanity. Joyce takes advantage of literary elements such as diction and imagery to convey an at times dreary and foolishly optimistic tone.

James Joyce’s short story, “Araby,” details the life of the narrator, a young Catholic student, living in Dublin, Ireland. While his surroundings are dismal and forlorn, he manages to separate his dreary life from his significant yearning for “Mangan’s sister,” a girl that lives on the same street as him. Joyce’s use of symbolism and imagery aids in revealing the creation and variation in tone—from doleful to sanguine and then back to doleful. Throughout the story, Joyce utilizes symbolism to effectively demonstrate the establishment of a dejected tone and how it changes until the end of “Araby.”

James Joyce’s short story Araby delves into the life of a young adolescent who lives on North Richmond Street in Dublin, Ireland. Narrated in the boys’ perspective, he recounts memories of playing with friends and of the priest who died in the house before his family moved in. With unrestrained enthusiasm, the boy expresses a confused infatuation with the sister of his friend Mangan. She constantly roams his thoughts and fantasies although he only ever catches glimpses of her. One evening she speaks to him, confiding that she is unable to visit Araby, a bazaar. Stunned by the sudden conversation, the boy promises he will go and bring her back a small memento. In anticipation, the boy launches into a period of restless waiting and distraction

Joyce's short story "Araby" is filled with symbolic images of a church. It opens and closes with strong symbols, and in the body of the story, the images are shaped by the young), Irish narrator's impressions of the effect the Church of Ireland has upon the people of Ire-land. The boy is fiercely determined to invest in someone within this Church the holiness he feels should be the natural state of all within it, but a succession of experiences forces him to see that his determination is in vain. At the climax of the story, when he realizes that his dreams of holiness and love are inconsistent with the actual world, his anger and anguish are directed, not toward the Church,

As far as I can recall my existing knowledge from kindergarten to high school, Columbus has always been described as a heroic figure who overcame countless obstacles fearlessly and finally found the “New World.” For a long time, there were numerous authors, poets, and painters praising Columbus’s legendary journey and his extraordinary contribution to mankind. However, after reading “The Discovery of the Bahamas,” the sailing logs written by Columbus, I figured that Columbus may not be such a man who is worthy of all the praises. There are two literary works related to the subjects. The painting, “Christopher Columbus at the royal court of Spain,” was created in 1884 by Václav Brožík, and depicts Columbus requesting, from Queen Isabella, King Ferdinand and groups of courtiers, funding for additional voyages. The poem, “Prayer of Columbus,” written by Walt Whitman in 1874, expresses Columbus’s praise of God for all his achievements, believing that God would still be on his side even though he had been through all the sufferings. While Brožík’s painting creates imagery, directly expressing Columbus’s ambition by his posture, and implied Spaniards’ eagerness of power and building empires with the reactions of Queen Isabella I and Ferdinand V and a gathering of courtiers, Whitman employs repetition and religious iconography to create a sharp contrast between Columbus’s fearless, unconquerable mind in his early life and his helplessness at the end of his last voyage.