Araby Symbolism

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An idealized romance usually ends in disappointment because in real life nothing is perfect enough to be ideal. In James Joyce’s short story, “Araby,” a young boy becomes infatuated with a neighbor named Mangan and this consumes him to the point of obsession. He imagines her to be his ideal romance. He thinks of nothing else but her the entire day, watching her come out of the house every morning and night, but does not have the courage to talk to her. The one time that the girl finally talks to him, it confuses him so that he is stumped and the only thing he remembers vividly from that short exchange is her asking him if he were going to Araby because she would like to see the bazaar but could not because she has to attend a retreat in her convent that week. Her desire to visit Araby becomes the boy’s new obsession, as if in fulfilling her wish it would also fulfill his love for her, convincing her they belong together. In his mind Mangan and Araby are fused into the same ideal that he has to realize. However, reality wakes him up to a realization that things are not really what he perceives they are. The short story uses Araby as symbolic of the main character’s idealized image of the girl he loves so that his ensuing disillusionment with Araby also becomes a disillusionment of his romantic ideal.
The young hero in the story creates an idealized concept of romance through Mangan, a neighboring girl. Every time he sees the girl, he does not just see any girl. At night, when Mangan would call her brother to tea, he would watch her come out and see “her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door” (Joyce). He sees her as a being that is almost beyond human, like a fairy or an angel, silhouetted in light. She becomes more...

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...emi-darkness in the bazaar when he arrives may be read as symbolic of the dying out of the flames of his idealized romance with Mangan.
The epiphany will teach the young boy a lesson and he will mature because of this one sided romance gone awry. Perhaps it will teach him to lower his standards and avoid idealizing things beyond their real essences. In the real world, nothing is perfect. The disappointment the boy feels at Araby would be the same disappointments he would feel for Mangan. Araby has storekeepers with rude manners and may not sell things one would like. Mangan is just a girl and if the young hero gets to know her better he would surely find traits that he would not like about her. His disillusionment forces the individual to face reality and its defects and weaknesses, but only when one realizes this fact will a young boy turn into a young man.

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