Araby vs Veronica's Poetry

930 Words4 Pages
“Araby” and “Veronica’s Poetry” were based on two young boys raised with a Catholic point of view. They were struck with adolescent infatuation. In the midst of it all, they were confused on whether to stay with their religious beliefs or go with their feelings. These two stories show how love can make a person do crazy things. Both of the boys learned the sexuality of women, and how manipulative love can be. In my experiences with adolescent love, you are willing to do anything for that crush. Just the sound of their name brings a smile to your face and every song seems to be about them, Nickles and the boy from Araby were no strangers to this feeling. Echoed details of the stories are when the two boys were in complete darkness. In “Araby” James Joyce tells us, “One evening I went into the back drawing-room. It was a dark rainy evening and there was no sound in the house... I was thankful that I could see so little. All my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I was about to slip from them” (Joyce 252). The boy from “Araby” was alone, with this feeling that he could not make sense of because his faith tells him that they are a sin. Something similar happened with Nickles as Sebacher says, “That night, unable to sleep, Nickles drove his Nova out to her house. The house was completely dark and vacant-looking, but he knew she was there. He felt as though all the light had left the world, which was not an entirely unpleasant feeling, somehow. The loneliness of interstellar space, he said to himself-a line from Ulysses Robert [his best friend] often recited” (Sebacher 1). The boys felt as if the light had left the world. But it didn’t bother them, not a bit. They were fine being in absolute darkness, nothing worried them. Being two Catholic boys in a Catholic school, they where taught that sexual feelings were wrong and a sin. They suffered
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