James Joyce’s “Araby” on Film

James Joyce published Dubliners in 1914, and among the stories in that volume, one received a distinguished cinematic treatment by John Huston in his 1987 film of “The Dead,” the subject of a fine monograph by Kevin Barry in 2001.¹ The time is overdue to recognize a film of another Dubliners story, “Araby,” directed by Dennis J. Courtney, released in 1999.² Early reviewers of the Dubliners volume, such as Gerald Gould in the New Statesman and Ezra Pound in The Egoist, singled out “Araby” for special notice, and Courtney’s film version is attuned to the story’s unusual beauty and complexity. I was grateful for the opportunity to interview the director in detail about his work on February 28, 2009.³

Courtney explained that the principal photography for this film of “Araby” was completed in the summer of 1994, with pickup shots completed in 1995. The shoot took eight to ten days, and the film, 18½minutes long, was shot out of continuity at various locations. Released in 1999, it was sent to over 40 film festivals, where it won numerous awards. Originating as a Master’s degree project at Regent University, the film had a budget of $30,000 and was shot in the eastern United States. Its locations included row houses in Richmond, Virginia, the exterior of the bazaar from a building in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and a train from New Hope, Pennsylvania. The priests’ sacristy from a church in Portsmouth, Virginia became the classroom in the film. Courtney researched the film for a year, reading everything he could find about the story. The website includes an extensive bibliography of critical writing about “Araby.”⁴ The adaptation and editing were by Courtney and Joseph Bierman.

Courtney described the film as inherently difficult to make because of its presentation of the interior experience of its young protagonist, portrayed by a young actor, Van Michael Hughes (see Figure 1). Hughes attended the Governor’s School of the Arts in Virginia, where he studied singing and dancing, and then graduated from Fordham University in New York. At Fordham, he performed in everything from student musicals to Molière. He has become a professional actor in musicals, dramatic theatre, and television in both New York and Los Angeles. I had an opportunity to interview Hughes on March 4, 2009 and record his observations about acting in the film of “Araby.” Director Courtney had seen Hughes in the musical Shenandoah and showed him the script, which Hughes read and liked. Hughes had played the Artful Dodger in the musical Oliver! and had learned a Cockney accent, which Courtney helped him convert into an Irish brogue.

“Araby,” the third story in Dubliners, was written in October 1905 and is a retrospective autodiegetic narrative by the adult whom the young man of the story became. “Araby” records the narrator’s infatuation with the older sister of his friend Thomas Mangan. Incorporated into the story are passages describing his love in terms of l’amour courtois and chivalry.⁵ Like a courtly lover, the narrator at first worships from afar in silence and then, to gain the girl’s favor, offers to bring a gift from the Araby bazaar as a pledge to her. He carries her name through the rough Dublin streets like a chalice in the midst of foes, a reference to the Holy Grail.

There was an actual Araby bazaar in Dublin, held May 14–19, 1894, a charity benefit for the Jervis Street Hospital run by the Sisters of Mercy. The event was advertised as a “Grand Oriental Fête.” Joyce attended the bazaar (Jackson/McGinley 27), though the actual fair was more lavish than the one Joyce records. Courtney calls attention to these historical circumstances by showing an advertisement for the Araby bazaar in the film.

Among the many interpretations of “Araby” that Courtney consulted— and included in the bibliography on the film’s website—are those that highlight its Orientalism, particularly its allusions to the Middle East as the land of enchantment and eroticism. The tale also reflects the legacy of nineteenth-century British...