him as a component of his wealthy environment rather than individualistically. There are a variety of observations, each of which could have a subplot or backstory to accompany it; these include the extramarital ‘mistress’ and the truant teenager with ‘piercing eyes’, as when in ‘Araby’ the boy flits between ‘drunken men’, ‘shop-boys’ and ‘street singers’ as his mind concentrates on his unnamed girl; while he observes such vivid scenarios, his fruitful but erratic mind never pauses to provide explanation for them or elaboration on them, suggesting that his concentration lies elsewhere. The final line is the first reference to the title for the reader, and is again an example of non sequitur. As when Joyce delays the relevance of the word ‘Araby’, this has the effect of a gradual rather than immediate realisation for the reader of the narrator’s ultimate intention. Light as a symbol of hope, like Joyce’s ‘lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns’, is lost as ‘lights switch and fade’, and this contrasts both visually with the environment, and with the narrator’s metaphorically dark thoughts. Again, the fact that the narrator draws meaning from something as mundane as traffic lights and the further attention to detail, this time to technical aspects of music theory, is indicative of a hugely productive mind. The interspersing of the italicised song lyrics between periods of narration provides bathetic contrast with the otherwise bleak tone of a suicidal eulogy.They also serve to link together all of the otherwise unconnected thoughts, just as when in ‘Communiqué’ the narrator toys with sound effects such as ‘[Whistling]’ and ‘[Rattle, rattle]’ while discussing arbitrary matters. The final epiphany, as in Joyce, is only in the very last lines. ‘[M]y body will be found’ gives new meaning to the title; the piece, or sheet of lyrics, is in fact a suicide note, thus stating explicitly the already implied theme of death. Suicide notes have a long and interesting (if necessarily morbid) history.The oldest in known existence is on an ancient Egyptian
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