Araby

“Araby” is a short story about a young boy who is obsessed with a girl and his obsession leads him to Araby or bazaar where he has an epiphany about himself, his desires, and the reality of life.


Level One Question:
Who does the boy get the money from?

Level Two Question:
What was the boy’s epiphany and why did he have it?

Level Three Question:
How is the bazaar symbolic?


The theme of this story is reality versus fantasy. People can sometimes be tricked by other actions or appearances and believe things that are not true. Gradually over time people will become mature and realize that love is not just a physical attraction and fantasies may never come true.

The narrator of this story is an adolescent boy who is experiencing his first love. It seems that he is only in love with her because of her looks. In fact, the only have said “a few casual words”. He thinks he knows the girl because he lays “on the floor in the front parlor watching her door” and he stalks her. He feels that he needs to go to the Araby to buy Mangan’s sister a present to show his love for this girl. He takes the trip to the bazaar late at night and with only a small amount of money when he follows his dream. This fantasy turns to disappointment as he realizes that he was a “creature driven and derided by vanity”. He comes to the epiphany that the girl was only a passion of his adolescence and was only a dream. In reality, the boy cannot have the girl because she is most likely not interested in him at all. Although he followed his dream, it turned out to be a false hope, but one that would allow him to distinguish reality from his desires.

The title of the short story, “Araby”, can be seen as a quest to the bazaar, where the main character experiences an epiphany. This is similar to the quest of the Arabs, who are primarily Muslims, when they travel to Mecca to pray. Here, they are enlightened by their prayers and religion. After they pray, they realize that they must redirect their lives in the name of their god, or cause. Likewise, the boy in the story makes his journey to the bazaar in search of something for a girl, and his purpose changed. He experiences an epiphany and realizes he has wasted time on an unattainable dream, which causes him to view himself as “a creature driven and derided by vanity; and (his) eyes burned with anguish and anger”.