Infatuation In Araby

Araby by James Joyce is a short story about a boy who has a crush on his friend’s sister, and will do anything to make her like him as well. He journeys to the bazaar to find a prized possession for his love, but only arrives to realize that his actions are nothing, but immature. Though this is the final realization of the young boy, the author spends most of the story vividly writing about the feelings the boy has and his reactions, up till his tragic realization. Joyce describes the boy’s perspective on his home town and shows the disgust the boy has for his boring daily life. The author then suddenly shows the excitement and power that the girl brings and has over the boy. His infatuation causes him to act without thinking and rationale.

He comes to the realization of his actions when he enters the bazaar which he has been waiting to venture to, turns out to not be as he expected.
The author uses many literary elements in the short story, including personification, imagery, and symbolism. Personification is used in many parts of the story in order to bring significance to a certain object. For example, it first appears when the boy first speaks of his home. He says, “The other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces.” The boy describes, that the houses have the ability to be conscious of its tenants and that it has the ability to gaze, both of which are impossible for a house to do. In this same quotation there is a metaphor which links the house to its imperturbable face, implying that the houses are calm and unchanging. Personification is commonly found in the story when discussing the houses. The next literary device commonly used by Joyce is imagery. The author uses vivid imagery to initiate all senses of the reader to keep the readers focus. The first significant use of vivid imagery is when the boy describes the sight of his kitchen, he says “Air, musty from having been long enclosed, hung in all the rooms, and the waste room behind the kitchen was littered with old useless papers.” Two senses are instigated in this quotation, first it is the sense of smell through the ‘musty air’ and the sight of ‘littered with old newspaper.’ Next, imagery is seen when he describes the bazaar as he enters “I could not find any sixpenny entrance and, fearing that the bazaar would be closed, I passed in quickly through a turnstile, handing a shilling to a weary-looking man. I found myself in a big hall girded at half its height by a gallery. Nearly all the stalls were closed and the greater part of the hall was in darkness. I recognized a silence like that which pervades a church after a service. I walked into the center of the bazaar timidly. A few people were gathered about the stalls which were still open. Before a curtain, over which the words Caf� Chantant were written in coloured lamps, two men were counting money on a salver. I listened to the fall of the coins.” This quotation holds great significance in this story as it describes the boy’s reaction to his long awaited destination. It is when the boy finally realizes his foolishness and that nothing is assured to be exactly as expected.Two symbols in the story are romance and Roman Catholocism. Romance is symbolized through the story as without his infatuation, the boy would not realize his vanity, whereas Roman Catholocism is referred to throughout the story as it displays the how pure the boy and girl are.
There are several lessons that can be taken from this story.

Joyce emphasizes the moral that, things do not necessarily turn out the way you would like it to. The author also wrote the story is such a manner to portray that love is doomed in the world flawed with materialism. By describing the boy’s excitement before venturing to the bazaar, and his reaction during his venture, the author directly displays the main moral of the story. Also, without his infatuation for the girl, the boy would not have realized this lesson, and the foolishness of his actions. He finally came to realize that he cannot assume that by buying an object for the girl, will force her to fall deeply in love, as things may not go to his liking. Ultimately, the young boys’ expectations fall short, just as his expectations for the bazaar does when he arrives.

Overall, the story Araby is interesting in and out of itself. There are several lessons to be learned depending on the perspective of the reader. James Joyce did a phenomenal job in portraying that just as the boy realized he went to the bazaar in vain, it is probably the same with the girl. Simply, the readers are able to clearly realize that the author’s intent was to make the boy realize that the girl may not be all that the boy accepts, just as the bazaar

was.