James Joyce's Dubliners contains studies of dozens of seemingly mundane characters. Despite the surfaces presented, each of the stories contained within the collection contains a shift within a person's life-this is why Dubliners is considered one of the greatest books to date and Joyce one of the greatest writers. The shift of each character can be more specifically described as an epiphany. Each character has a unique revelation within his or her story that alters the character's life. In the story “Araby,” the narrator is a young boy who is infatuated with the older sister of his friend, who happens to live next door. Over the course of the story, location plays a vital role, be it as broad as the city of Dublin or as specific as the Araby Bazaar.
“Araby” begins with the narrator's description of the street on which he lives: “North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free.” Joyce, being famous for significant opening paragraphs, proves why within this first line alone. The description of the street as being “blind” provides a visual for the reader, as the street contains a dead end, as well as setting up the sensual sort of theme Joyce frequents. The street is “blind,” and “quiet,” filling the senses of the reader before introducing another prominent idea in all of the Dubliners's stories-paralysis-via the use of the term “set free.” The boys from the Christian Brothers' School are set free, which suggests that someone, perhaps the narrator, is imprisoned, watching those who have been released. The narrator continues, “An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground.” This description is telling, as well, as the house is “uninhabited” and “detached,” like many of Joyce's characters, including the narrator of this story. Joyce's pointed use of adjectives introduces the story perfectly. The third and final sentence of the paragraph states, “The other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces” (Joyce 26). Here Joyce personifies the houses, making them as pretentious and petty as people, describing them as containing “decent lives within them” and knowing it. This story is about disappointment, which can be determined upon a careful reading of the initial description of place.
The narrator then describes his house, one of the settings for the story. He tells of the house's former owner, a priest, and the drawing room in which the priest died: “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” (Joyce 26). The features of the house give a good feeling for the environment in which the narrator was raised-in the emotional sense as well as the physical. He grew up in the home of his older aunt and uncle who, based on the descriptions contained in the story, are rather old fashioned and strict. The discipline of strict guardians provides some explanation for the narrator's observations in the opening of the boys from the Christian Brothers' School being “set free.” These sorts of restrictions would also be defined by Joyce as “paralysis,” which is another central theme in all of the stories contained in Dubliners.
The narrator becomes infatuated with his neighbor, his friend Mangan's sister. The two speak rarely, but the narrator's feelings grow, and he sits in the front room of his house so that he can watch her leave, then follow her out. Finally, she notices the narrator and asks him if he will be attending the Araby Bazaar. He tells her that, if he goes, he will buy her a present. Upon arriving at the bazaar, the narrator begins to look at the contents of one stall operated by a lady: “Once or twice the young lady glanced at me over her shoulder. I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real.”
Here the narrator admits doubt over his task. The use of the word “useless” drains all hope from the scene, as far as his finding the perfect gift for Mangan's sister goes. He still attempts to save face, though, making the lady running the stall believe he might really purchase one of the pretty things she is selling. He continues: “Then I turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar. I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket.” The narrator's turning and walking away from his long-awaited destination informs the reader that he truly is giving up on identifying a present for his love. The use of the adverb “slowly” implies a certain degree of disappointment. He never tells us why he gives up, but the mention of the money in his pocket, and it being only coins, suggests that he cannot afford a gift he deems worthy of the girl he loves. The narrator then says, “I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. The upper part of the hall was now completely dark.”
