"Araby": Yet Another Broken Heart
             James Joyce's short story "Araby" (87) is an almost-perfect depiction of the incredible experience of falling out of innocence and into love, or the "experience" of love. Once a person sercums to love's pull it is inevitable that they will behave perculiur, then irrational, and finally, sagaciously.
             As the young man in "Araby" is partaking in child's play, he finds himself feeling the first pangs of his journey. "...and I stood by the railings looking at her," is an example of his changing behavior. Can you not just picture this young man's friends watching him, wandering why he is just standing there, looking with glazed eyes at this girl?
             As the powers of love are at it's most intense, all rational thinking goes "out the window." "Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door," is an indication that the young man has a full blown obsession with this young lady. How abnormal it is that a young boy would be up and ready to leave for school in such a timely manner. Only a strong motivation could accomplish this! Normally, he would barely be out of bed or, perhaps, he would be watching cartoons. He "...ran to the hall, seized my books and followed her," instead of running with his buddies, punching one in the arm.
             As the age-old story of love, and it's journey, take it's more common path than not, the young man finds his painful way back to reality. His best laid plans did not work out and he "...began to walk up and down the room, clenching my fists." As reality once again surfaces, he sees himself as "...a creature driven and derided by vanity."
             Surely, at some point in everyone's life, each has an experience of the power of love, and all it entails! Despite the risky, and usually inevita...