Araby

I wrote a tossup (buzzer question in quizbowl) on James Joyce's short story collection Dubliners after reading "Araby" in class and "The Sisters" a few days later. I was inspired to write it because I felt that both stories shared the theme of young men undergoing an experience that helps shape them as adults. I really like this theme partially because I was introduced to Joyce in the "Coming-of-Age Novel" class that I took with Mr. Mitchell last year, where we read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In the book, Stephen Dedalus goes through transformative experiences which visibly shape him as he grows older in each chapter. I read "Araby" and "The Sisters" as being such chapters in the untold stories of the narrators of each story. Because of this fun thematic connection, I really wanted to write a tossup about them (although it doesn't really go into the connection), since writing down what I've read helps me approach the stories from a different perspective. I've also written tossups on other stories/authors we've read this semester.

At the end of a story in this collection, a character notes that a dying man was found in a confessional box in the middle
of the night, prompting everyone to pause and listen for his laughter. That man’s “third stroke” prompts the narrator to
compare the word “paralysis” to the words “gnomon” and “simony”, after which Old Cotter berates him for having such
a close relationship with that old priest. In another story from this collection, the protagonist misinterprets a meeting with
a girl in which she “turn[s] a silver bracelet round and round her wrist” as her showing interest in him. That story from
this collection ends with a boy unable to buy a gift for Mangan’s sister from an underwhelming bazaar. The Sisters and
Araby are stories from, for 10 points, what collection by James Joyce?

ANSWER: Dubliners