Analyze the boy in “Araby”
James Joyce is a novelist and poet, known to be one of the most influential writers in the
modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century. “Araby” is one of the short stories written
by James Joyce. The narrator in the story is coming of age, falls in love with his friend
Mangan’s sister. He does not know how to demonstrate his feeling toward her, he can only
keep an eye on her secretly every day. As Mangan’s sister can’t go to the Araby market, he
promises to buy a gift for her at the Araby market, but when he finally gets there, it is
already too late, most of the stores are already closed. The money on his hands cannot buy
anything. He is deeply in pain, finds himself has been driven and derided by vanity as of
now. James Joyce didn’t directly characterize the narrator’s personality, but the readers can
still see who this boy is from his inner world. The narrator is a pure person, he desires love
in his life and he has a passion of love.
First of all, the boy is so pure. He is coming of age, but he has not yet stepped into the
adults’ world. Although there is only black and white in the boy’s life, but he still finds his
own habits, and the space that only belongs to him. “The former tenant of our house, a
priest, had died in the back drawing-room. Air, musty from having been long enclosed,
