"Araby" by James Joyce

 From a distance, James Joyce’s "Araby" might appear as a story showing a failure of love. The narrator of the story is ‘I’, whose name is not presented within the passage. ‘I’ have a crush on his friend’s older sister, and he suffers from the emotion of love. When he gets an opportunity to appeal to her by going to the Araby bazaar and buying her something, he really looks forward to it and anticipates very much. But, after arriving at the bazaar and realizing that the bazaar is not like a ideal place which he thought, the narrator feels epiphany, which he realizes that his love isn’t ideal.

 After all, when the nameless narrator depicts his behavior and emotions throughout the story, it helps the reader to dive deeper and empathize with the main character. The main character is a young boy, which he looks the world in his sense, as depicted in the fourth paragraph. He also uses allusion to explain his feelings of love, thinking like “my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.” This shows that he feels love in a very pure and emotional way, believing love as a divine thing, which is separated with the ordinary world. The depiction of the complex emotions of childish love, and an anxiety toward it is shown well during the passage.

 However, on the other hand, not only his emotions and behaviors but also the depiction of the objects throughout the story shows the narrator’s emotions too. As shown in “but the porters moved them back, saying that it was a special train for the bazaar.” or “In front of me was a large building which displayed the magical name.”, narrator’s expectations for the bazaar and the hope of buying something which can appeal to Mangan’s sister is alluded in his words. Also, when the dissatisfaction of the bazaar and his childish love is felt by the narrator, the background is said as “The upper part of the hall was now completely dark.” , which I think collaborates well with the current emotion of the narrator.

 Therefore, it is perhaps more accurate to assume that "Araby" isn’t a simple short story, but a story which contains various allusions. Most of the materials shown in the story has its own meaning, (such as the ‘spike’ which Mangan’s sister holds) which resembles Chekov’s Gun. During the course of the passage, it is shown that the narrator, although being in similar age with his friends, is more mentally grown. Sentences like “Her brother and two other boys were fighting for their caps, and I was alone at the railings.” shows that the narrator had exited the child stage, and feels love as he goes into puberty.

I think this story is better than ‘the student’ because this story is easy to empathize, since most of us have the situation which we had first felt love in elementary school or in middle schools.