Maturing in Joyce's "Araby"

In James Joyce’s Araby, the readers are introduced to the boy, a young main character who is enamored with his friend Mangan’s older sister. From the beginning of the story, the boy takes every available opportunity to glance at his crush- from her calling her brother to go home and the little moments when she passes by him in the streets.

Joyce employs literary devices such as metaphors and imagery to demonstrate her beauty to the readers, but he also uses hyperboles in the sense that because the readers are viewing the story through his perspective, he is more biased towards the way she looks.

At least before the epiphany, he was completely obsessed with her, as evident in the stream of consciousness throughout Araby, thus providing the readers with an unreliable narrator. The readers do not know much beyond what the boy describes, and what he tells us is how wholly beautiful and perfect she looks. This obsession and love for his crush is what compels him to want to go to the bazaar and purchase something for her. He tells his uncle early in the morning and is irritated and angry as time passes until finally, the uncle comes home late- having forgotten his promise to the boy.

The interaction the boy observes at the market, along with the buildup from throughout the day to arriving at the bazaar allows him to have his epiphany.

The readers realize that, after the epiphany, the boy grows more mature and wiser in matters of the heart and has also gotten over his first crush. The beautiful imagery provided to the readers by the boy of his crush is greatly contrasted to the bazaar- representing reality. The boy got to the bazaar late, everything was dark and silent, and every stall save for one was open. Yet, the flirty woman in the stall and her interactions with her customers had made the boy realize his own vanity and the reality of the situation. He understands that his age, like going to the bazaar late, offered him little chance of actually being with his friend’s older sister. While he may view the girl as a goddess, the reality is much different as he had expected; the girl described the bazaar to him as a bustling, lively, and exciting place, and yet, when the boy arrives the bazaar is dark, devoid of people, and had few places to go.

Moreover, the boy realizes, that the interactions between him and his crush will hardly be serious, just like the conversations between the woman in the stall and the male customers.

She might be flirty, talkative, and pay attention, but at the end of the day, there is some purpose behind the interactions, and it is not what the boy wants. The culmination of the boy’s frustration throughout the day as he thinks about going to the bazaar for her as well as the previous night’s excitement that she wanted his help finally came to a head as he discovered his own vanity and “simpness.”