Critical Analysis of James Joyce's "Araby"
             "Araby", by James Joyce, is a story about a boy's innocent love and a bitter experience as a result. The town he lives in has seemingly nice houses, but they are becoming uninhabited and ruinous. His neighbors are strongly religious, but they are also falsely pious. His first love he found is a girl in his neighborhood, who attends a convent. He visits Araby to buy something for her, but realizes upon arriving that the bazaar is nothing like what he imagined – it is dirty and tawdry. He, as a result, gets disappointed and even feels anger. Throughout the story, Joyce reveals that there is a certain gap between the ideal and the real.
             In spite of the fact that the boy adores the girl, he rarely speaks with her. As he becomes sensually aware of her, he hardly can concentrate on study. However, his aunt and uncle, with who he lives, never notice his struggle. From these factors, the boy's character can be explained as shy, innocent, and isolated. Motivated by a short conversation with her, he visits Araby. Accordingly, it can be said that he is blind with love for the neighbor. Significantly, he has not seen the incompatibility between the imagined innocent beauty and the cold hard fact until he witnesses the real state of Araby. This heightened awareness cures him of his blind, parochial attitude. Joyce's story is spoken by the first person viewpoint of the boy himself of years after. As a grown man, he reminisces the bitter experience ironically. He equates this blindness that he experienced with his childishness. For example, he recalls the girl's name as "a summons to all my foolish blood", and says that the passionate feelings he had for her did "waste my waking and sleeping". By applying this style of narration, Joyce clearly conveys that there is a certain gap between the ideal and the real, whi
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