In James Joyce's "Araby", under the layer of an angsty love story, there lies a

theme of disenchantment. The main protagonist is ecstatic at the thought of goin

g to a bazaar to buy a souvenir for a girl he wishes to impress. It wasn't until
he went there that he realized his feelings were all for naught. Throughout the
story, Joyce uses symbolic devices to develop the theme of towering expectation
s and its imminent downfall. He also employs his own personal sentiments and exp
eriences he had growing up as a young Catholic-exposed boy in Dublin to communic
ate the oppressive and close-minded nature of the church as well as the monotono
us life of the city. The boy in the story could be probably seen as a likeness f
or James Joyce himself.
The author was very much anti-Catholic and expresses this attitude throughout th
e story. The deceased priest is known to the boy as very charitable after leavin
g his money to several organizations and his furniture to his sister, but the pr
iest's musty drawing-room that is "littered with old useless [yellowed] papers"
suggests the church is an antiquated institution. After countless thoughts of Ma
ngan's sister pervades his mind during inopportune moments, the boy feels at one
point that he was about to take leave of his senses and put his hands together
and prayed to prevent it from happening. His guilt over thinking impurely about
his friend's sister alludes to Catholicism's disparaging thoughts on human sexua
lity. What should be common and natural feelings among young boys is seen as ind
ecent and the boy tries to overcome it. Another instance where religion is viewe
d as an obstacle is when Mangan's sister is unable to go to Araby because of a r
etreat in her convent. Maybe it she had been able attend that bazaar, the ending
would have resulted in a happy resolution for the boy.
Joyce frequently uses light to convey longing for something rather alluring and
mysterious, and also to illustrate becoming enlightened or, figuratively, seeing
the light. Mangan's sister is always described in an illuminated manner from "h
er figure defined by the light from the half-opened door" to the "lamplight at [
her] curved neck." The boy's first encounter with her was also accompanied by a
gleaming "distant lamp or lighted window" and while he converses with her he not
ices that it "lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand up
on the railing." As a contrast, Joyce uses the dark to symbolize the quashing of
hope, but it also represents a safeness one feels in a familiar environment. Af
ter the boy and his friends explore acquainted dark areas they often depend on t
he shadows to protect them from the sternness of his uncle as he comes home and
the beckoning and persistent calls of Mangan's sister. At the end of the story,
the boy is walking through the bazaar when the lights are extinguished, as well
as his aspiration for an exciting new experience.
We learn early on that the unnamed boy is fascinated with unfamiliar and foreign
things, like the Memoirs of Vidocq that detail the life of French criminal turn
ed chief detective. His allure for the exotic extends to the bazaar, Araby, that
promises, according to its promotional poster, sensational sights and events th
at accurately portray the mystical East. This fascination doesn't come as a surp
rise when one examines his repetitive and uninteresting living situation. He res
ides in a house that's part of a cul-de-sac, or as others would see, a dead end
suggesting that he's going nowhere. He can, in great detail, describes the sound
s and sights that are well-known to him as he walks though the Dublin streets an
d that "converge in a single sensation of life for [him]." At the end of the sto
ry, the revelation of his mundane life all comes to him in a single moment. ----- The idea of Arabia is fantastical to him because of this upcoming fair and J
oyce uses the color brown to symbolize the boy's thoughts of this overseas penin
sula. The earthy tones that are painted on the outer walls of imperturbable hous
es and that reflect the "brown-figure" of Mangan's sister suggests the skin colo
r of the Arabian people. -----The boy, as he heads to the Araby attraction, after being delayed by his late un
cle, notices the streets and houses of Dublin as bleak and ruinous. He rides a s

pecial train dedicated to those attending the event by himself and passes over a
river. He's leaving the mundane and lousy life he's always known and traveling
to a distant land as if he's on a quest. When he arrives he enters one of the on
ly stalls still open and began to note a number of things wrong with his vision
of Araby. The three people attending the stall had English accents and were hold
ing a banal conversation. The boy noticed they were selling typical British porc
elain vases and tea-sets and the woman of the group talked to the boy only out o
f a duty to sell the wares. The boy left with a revelation of the disillusions h
e carried about his life and anguish at the thought of never getting away. He cu
rsed himself for his vain love of the elusive East that also extended to the sou
rce of his infatuation.