The Sunday Following Mother's Day

The moment in the story I chose to focus on was at the Children's Center when Madeleine is talking to Arnisa while waiting for her father to return from the store.

"Madeleine felt she knew this woman, knew her children, who were destined for nowhere, knew her common-law husband with his unreliable trash-heap of a car, knew this woman and her wig of 'real human hair!' as the television ads proclaimed. Knew their tabloid lives. It occurred to her that they were a part of the same tribe as the nearly toothless man who had come to her door that morning, saying he was her father."

I believe it was at this moment that Madeleine decided that she did not want anything to do with her father that she was ashamed of him, and I also believe she finally acknowledges to herself that she is angry at him. It is a turning point for her, but I think it also stands as a small representation of the story as a whole. In this moment, any fantasies of a reconciliation with her estranged father vanish. Madeleine equates Arnisa's raggedy family and car and wig with her father's shabby unmatched clothes, missing teeth, worn-out car, and drug-store chocolates.

When her father first appeared at her door, Jones tells us "What she saw was not the man in the letters with the beautiful handwriting, not the man of the poems". She was finally aware of the chasm between the father that she had invented in her mind and the one of reality standing before her. She was mad at him for not being the fantasy father she had hoped for, and probably mad at herself for inventing him. She may have even blamed him (or his name) for causing her son's retardation. I think Madeleine is also afraid that she may end up like Arnisa with a common-law husband and a child that is quite literally going nowhere.

Young Lions

In Young Lions, Jones uses the metaphor throughout the story to liken Caesar our protagonist to the wild feline beast that the title suggests. In the opening scene, Caesar is naked, a characteristic of the wild, and he also has to start his day with some milk, a feline trait. Jones uses the phrase "an empty apartment bring(s) down the soul" at couple of different times in the story, and the phrase conjures an image to me of a caged animal pacing, restless and eager for freedom. Caesar is this caged animal, "anxious to be out in the streets". Another cat-like trait that Jones bestows on Caesar is grooming. Since our protagonist is technically human, he does not have any fur to preen; it is the way that Caesar dresses that gives him this quality. Caesar is a very clothes-conscious person, his leather jacket, gold key ring, and expensive pants are described, and even when he was robbing his father's house, he "took as many of his clothes as he could carry". Another lion trait that Jones gives Caesar is fierceness. Caesar is a violent force to be reckoned with, just as the king of the jungle. He carries a gun instead of wielding teeth and claws, and he is unrepentant and ferocious with his weapon. He recalls with fondness his past kills as he touches his gun to take it with him for the day. Volatility is yet another way that Jones relates Caesar to a cat. Caesar will be in bed with his girlfriend one minute and storming out the door the next, praising her for her performance helping him with his con in one breath and yelling and beating her in the next breath.

Jones may use this extended metaphor in his story to show the wildness of urban life, and that often one must become a predator to keep from being prey. Or he may show that Caesar is a "young" lion, not just a lion, by his misuse or overuse of his power, just as young animals often do not know their own strength.

Araby

In the story, as we discussed in class, the protagonist has a very active imagination. He has convinced himself that Mangan's sister has sent him on a quest to a far away land in search of exotic treasure. Some of the language Joyce uses connotes this idea of a knight on a quest. In the opening, the boy spoke of how he "ran the gauntlet", and later about how he "bore (his) chalice safely through a throng of foes". The boy had created himself as a heroic figure in his mind, and when he failed at his quest (that he ultimately created for himself), reality crashed down around him. The boy experienced that first sting of humility, or humiliation.

The boy made a lot of assumptions: he assumed that Mangan's sister had encouraged him to get her a present; he assumed that Araby would be an exotic and magical bazaar, as he said the name "cast an eastern enchantment over (him)"; he assumed that if he got Mangan's sister a present from Araby, she would be impressed with him; he also assumed that he was old enough to understand and participate in an adult romantic encounter. The boy realized that a present for the girl was out of his reach when he said the vases in her stall "stood like eastern guards at either side" of one of the few remaining booths. By the end of the story, the boy is described himself as "a creature" rather than any sort of knight, and he realized that it was his vanity that had "driven and derided" him.