Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. [Vol. 3.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 23)

STUDIES - László Dányi: Decoding Decoded Systems: An Interpretation of Steven Millhauser's "In the Penny Arcade"

4. The symbolic code I have mentioned the boy's entering and walking in the penny arcade, which could be a symbol of quest which shifts between light and dark. The same idea is expressed in the title of the story. Penny originally meant a silver coin which can stand for something glittering, and arcade is a covered shadowy place which can symbolize darkness. The penny arcade is the place where the two

—light and dark

—unite. Another implication of penny is insignificant, and by following this meaning the title could refer to place of minor importance. Reading the story one might find sufficient evidence to argue for and against both interpretations. The visual images of light and dark have their equivalents in space, in time and in feelings, too. The following list is an illustration to this point: — some words that could be associated with light in the text: summer, sunshine, outside, brilliant, white, wide, sun, — some words that could be associated with dark in the text: shadows, inside, shade, narrow, black. This list is compiled from the beginning of the story because later on the simple division into light and dark becomes more complex. The visible, the known and the precise is opposed to the enchanting, the mysterious and the unknown, but Millhauser blends these entities and he does not reject the coexistence of the two groups, i.e. he uses the expression "enigmatic summer" (135), and the narrow sunlight penetrates into the dark arcade. What darkness in the text does not mean is that it is frightening. Darkness is "enticing" (135) and the boy longs to investigate it, because he thinks that nothing is visible there and he can keep the mystery of the place. He is disappointed when realizing that the darkness inside is not dark enough because some rays of the sun illuminate the arcade. The illusion is destroyed and broken by the sun, and distortions become visible, in N. Sarraute's words, "the fact being, that these states resemble certain phenomena of modern physics which are so delicate and minute that even a ray of light falling on them 18