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The adolescent perspective as depicted in the short stories of Joyce, Faulkner, and Cather
The search for higher social status as a form of personal fulfillment and self-definition all mark the coming-of-age stories of James Joyce, William, Faulkner, and Willa Cather, despite the distinct differences between the three male protagonists created by the authors in their seminal short stories "Araby," "Barn Burning," and "Paul's Case." All three short stories feature a young protagonist whose illusions of finery and higher class status are shattered. Because these aspirations are also often connected to sexual desires, this fall from grace is particularly difficult for the young men to tolerate.
In "Araby," the young male protagonist becomes enamored with a young woman who seems innocent, above his own class, and charming. When she professes to wish to go to the Araby bazaar but cannot because she must go on a retreat with her convent, the narrator decides to go for her. However, Araby itself does not live up to the promise of his dreams: it contains a stall with women with English accents and its general atmosphere is crass rather than alluring. The boy's desire to go to Araby and also by extension his desire for the young woman quickly fizzles: "I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest...
Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger" (Joyce). Youthful idealism and sexual desire are quickly extinguished: the boy also seems upset that he could be so quickly taken in by the appearance of beauty and class which is really cheap and tattered beneath the surface (both Araby and the young woman)
"Barn Burning" by William Faulkner also features a young narrator who is somewhat ashamed of his lower class background. Abner's father Sarty Snopes has a strong sense of honor which once led him to burn down the barn of a man he thought wronged him. When Sarty seeks similarly take his revenge against Major de Spain, the man for whom he is a sharecropper, his son warns the Major and eventually decides to flee and create a new life for himself at the end of the story. The boy wishes to create a new identity that is no longer allied with his father. For all of Sarty's airs, his son clearly is repulsed by what he sees as his father's lack of real ethics. But even after the son leaves, he is still desperate to believe his father had some honor and cut a romantic figure: "My father, he thought. 'He was brave!' he cried suddenly…'He was in the war! He was in Colonel Sartoris' cav'ry!" not knowing that his father had gone to that war a private in the…
