Identity Crisis in James Joyce's Books

James Joyce’s inspiration for writing came from experiences with his family and the town in which he lived. For example, Joyce’s father was a highly regarded tenor singer in Ireland due to that there was no steady income for the family upkeep. In addition, his father was also an alcoholic so Joyce grew up poor. He depicts this aspect of his childhood in the text when the narrator’s uncle comes home late and drunk even after being pre-informed of the narrator’s desire to go to the bazaar.

Joyce also depicts poverty using the description of the buildings and streets where the narrator lived.

“After an intolerable delay, the train moved out of the station slowly. It crept onward among ruinous houses and over the twinkling river” (Joyce 40).
Joyce also, in an attempt to address the extent of catholic dominance in Ireland, mentions a priest, his death, and the boys boarding school showing once again how deeply his environment influenced his writing.

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In Joyce’s ‘Araby’, there is seen an awakening and confusing passion experienced by a boy on the brink of adulthood. The narrator’s immaturity is evident in both his inflated expectations concerning his love interest and his dashed hopes at the bazaar. There is a moment of truth, realization, and pain that his love may be taken away from him or may not exist at all. The boy makes a transition from his childish ideals to the realities of adult life. This is a story of the tragic loss of innocence; a kind of puberty in itself.

It is a wake-up call to reality from his fantasy love.

I hope with this I have demonstrated the importance of a sense of self (the loss and realization of self) in the respective texts. I discussed how the social behavioral patterns had an influence on the authors’ literary writing in their respective eras(centuries). I also highlighted Stevenson’s frequent use of scientific evidence and Joyce's use of religious undertones to express the status of sense of self.