Adulthood in literature is defined as the moment when one departs from his past self and reaches a new form of enlightenment. In the short stories “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro, “Araby” by James Joyce, “ Indian Camp” by Ernest Hemingway and “Where are you going, Where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, adulthood is perceived as enlightenment to the blankness of life. The female adults are sentenced to the bleak domesticity of womanhood and are enlightened to their meager role in life. Unlike the women, the men respond to the bleakness of life with a new found desire to overcome, like the father figures in “Araby” and “Indian Camp.” However, despite this gendered perception of bleak adulthood the children have, their perception of adulthood…show more content… The boy in “Araby” perceives his journey to the european scam called Araby as his chance to conquer the unknown— the beautiful woman he has never spoken to. Therefore he derives an idealized image of the unknown to conquer as “the syllables of the word Araby” (Joyce) “cast an eastern enchantment over him” (Joyce) and heighten his imperial desire. He marks the ability to control as the pinnacle of his adulthood as he sees anything other than his exotic journey as “ugly monotonous child’s play” (Joyce), insisting life’s work “stood between [him] and [his] desire” (Joyce). Similarly, the boy in “Indian Camp” embraces his voyage into the distant camp as a quest worthy of adulthood. He elevates the magic of his journey and regards his trip into the occult Indian camp with reverence as he romances the pastoral description of the “meadow that was soaking wet with dew” (Hemingway). His eagerness to conquer this land pervades his time with his father as he continually engages with his replies, saying, “I see” and “ I know” when his father asks questions. However, while both boys hold a reverent perception of their ability to conquer, their eventual acknowledgement of their weaknesses forces them to attach disillusionment to adulthood. In “Araby” the boy’s discovery of the empty reality of the carnival replaces the past enchantment with a “ silence like that union which pervades a church service”( Joyce). The eurocentric “porcelain vases and floral sets” (Joyce) and “english accents” (Joyce) diminish the illusion of quixotic challenge and diminish the child’s hope. Indeed, the disillusionment the boy faces corrupts his perception of adulthood as he ultimately replaces his fixation on love by grappling with the “anguish and anger”(Joyce) of a “creature driven and derided by vanity”(Joyce). Similarly, the boy from
