The narrator in James Joyce's "Araby" is a romantic, idealistic boy who is obsessed with the exotic. For the narrator, both Mangan's sister and the bazaar called Araby represent the exotic in some sense. For instance, the narrator has a considerable crush on Mangan's sister, and we get the sense that she is the first girl he's been attracted to. Like most boys who get their first crush, the narrator views Mangan's sister in idealistic terms, and he immediately assumes that simply because she is new and different (exotic, in other words), that his simple crush is much more significant than it really is. Likewise, Araby is a bazaar that seems to evoke the Middle East, and for the boy such a location is unimaginably exotic and far away. Thus, his trip to Araby to buy a gift for Mangan's sister becomes more than a mere errand: it's a romantic adventure that gives him the chance to prove his undying devotion to his love. Of course, the exoticism of both Araby and Mangan's sister is deconstructed in the final scene, in which the boy understands his idealizations of both have been childish. Thus, much of the short story is about breaking down naive assumptions of an exotic "other," and this idea is represented by the narrator's relationship with both Mangan's sister and Araby.
Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
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