ARABY IS A REALISTIC STORY ABOUT ‘ADOLESCENT’ –
“Araby” is one of the fifteen short stories that together make up Joyce’s collection, Dubliners
{Published 1914}. It is the most typical of Joyce’s short stories and is told from the perspective
of a boy just on the verge of adolescence in that it is more like prose – lyric or psychological
mood – poem. It relies more on symbolic suggestions than on straight forward narration. It is
essentially poetic in tone and texture in spite of the occasional jarring notes provided by its
shabby realistic setting. Realism and romantic vision coexist in it and form its very stuff. It is
much more than a mere story; it is a vivid waiting – waiting with baited breath for the
realization of an ideal that remains ever elusive. Its symbolic design more than the rigid frame
work of a conventional short story befits the mysterious working of an adolescent heart
experiencing the first impulse of love that ends in utter frustration. Symbolically the boy’s
failure in love suggests the universal non-realization of the human ideal. Araby concentrates
on character rather than on plot to reveal the ironies within self-deception. “Araby” is more
a remembrance than a tale.
The author here recalls the days of his boyhood when he lived with his uncle and aunt in North
Richmond Street of Dublin. The story begins with the growing child’s impression of the dull
and depressing surroundings, his sensitiveness to sad and deserted things like the yellow
pages of an ownerless old books and the rusty thrown away bicycle pump. A sense of religious
mystery is there from the very moment a child grows into adolescence and acquires a
personality. This influences his concept of love, which is not so much assured by a sense
togetherness as by fear of acute loneliness. The first person point of view used by James Joyce
enables the reader to identify more readily with the feelings of the boy. To the boy, the girl is
an image, rather than a real person. She adopts an image of an angel or a goddess in the story,
as most of time when she “appears” before him, the darkness around her lights up. Finally
they talk. Mangan's sister asks the boy to visit 'Araby', and he promises to bring a gift for her.
Ever since, his 'confused adoration' for the girl becomes an overpowering passion for the
bazaar. The word Araby connotes the exotic, the intriguing enticement of an imaginary world.
The boy fancies visiting a land of heart's desire which doesn't exist in the real world. The boy’s
confused adoration of the girl and groundless fascination of the bazaar is out of his blindness
and ignorance. In fact, there are only some ‘English’ people selling cheap products in the
bazaar instead of Arabs selling exotic objects. It is not the kind of enchanting exotic bazaar he
has been dreaming of, and the disillusionment of the bazaar perhaps hints that he had the
same disillusionment of his love to the girl. “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a
creature driven and vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger”. The narrator’s
change of heart concludes the story on a moment of epiphany, but not a positive one. Instead
of reaffirming his love or realizing that he does not need gifts to express his feelings for
Mangan’s sister, the narrator simply gives up. He seems to interpret his arrival at the bazaar
as it fades into darkness as a sign that his relationship with Mangan’s sister will also remain
just a wishful idea and that his infatuation was as misguided as his fantasies about the bazaar.
What might have been a story of happy, youthful love becomes a tragic story of defeat. In an
evening the narrator has moved from an innocent boy playing in the last light of childhood,
to an anguished young man who has come to realise that maturity is not the realisation of
childhood's promise, but its loss. This is an archetypal Joycean epiphany, one of those often
“Araby” is one of the fifteen short stories that together make up Joyce’s collection, Dubliners
{Published 1914}. It is the most typical of Joyce’s short stories and is told from the perspective
of a boy just on the verge of adolescence in that it is more like prose – lyric or psychological
mood – poem. It relies more on symbolic suggestions than on straight forward narration. It is
essentially poetic in tone and texture in spite of the occasional jarring notes provided by its
shabby realistic setting. Realism and romantic vision coexist in it and form its very stuff. It is
much more than a mere story; it is a vivid waiting – waiting with baited breath for the
realization of an ideal that remains ever elusive. Its symbolic design more than the rigid frame
work of a conventional short story befits the mysterious working of an adolescent heart
experiencing the first impulse of love that ends in utter frustration. Symbolically the boy’s
failure in love suggests the universal non-realization of the human ideal. Araby concentrates
on character rather than on plot to reveal the ironies within self-deception. “Araby” is more
a remembrance than a tale.
The author here recalls the days of his boyhood when he lived with his uncle and aunt in North
Richmond Street of Dublin. The story begins with the growing child’s impression of the dull
and depressing surroundings, his sensitiveness to sad and deserted things like the yellow
pages of an ownerless old books and the rusty thrown away bicycle pump. A sense of religious
mystery is there from the very moment a child grows into adolescence and acquires a
personality. This influences his concept of love, which is not so much assured by a sense
togetherness as by fear of acute loneliness. The first person point of view used by James Joyce
enables the reader to identify more readily with the feelings of the boy. To the boy, the girl is
an image, rather than a real person. She adopts an image of an angel or a goddess in the story,
as most of time when she “appears” before him, the darkness around her lights up. Finally
they talk. Mangan's sister asks the boy to visit 'Araby', and he promises to bring a gift for her.
Ever since, his 'confused adoration' for the girl becomes an overpowering passion for the
bazaar. The word Araby connotes the exotic, the intriguing enticement of an imaginary world.
The boy fancies visiting a land of heart's desire which doesn't exist in the real world. The boy’s
confused adoration of the girl and groundless fascination of the bazaar is out of his blindness
and ignorance. In fact, there are only some ‘English’ people selling cheap products in the
bazaar instead of Arabs selling exotic objects. It is not the kind of enchanting exotic bazaar he
has been dreaming of, and the disillusionment of the bazaar perhaps hints that he had the
same disillusionment of his love to the girl. “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a
creature driven and vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger”. The narrator’s
change of heart concludes the story on a moment of epiphany, but not a positive one. Instead
of reaffirming his love or realizing that he does not need gifts to express his feelings for
Mangan’s sister, the narrator simply gives up. He seems to interpret his arrival at the bazaar
as it fades into darkness as a sign that his relationship with Mangan’s sister will also remain
just a wishful idea and that his infatuation was as misguided as his fantasies about the bazaar.
What might have been a story of happy, youthful love becomes a tragic story of defeat. In an
evening the narrator has moved from an innocent boy playing in the last light of childhood,
to an anguished young man who has come to realise that maturity is not the realisation of
childhood's promise, but its loss. This is an archetypal Joycean epiphany, one of those often
