Araby By James Joyce

In the short story “Araby” by James Joyce, I noticed that there was a repetition in the theme of boredom and tediousness. The houses in the beginning are described as having “decent lives within them”, and the street is a dead end. By using words like “decent” and “brown” and having the street be a dead end, the reader immediately gets a sense of a dull place with nowhere to escape. This theme continues with the narrator referring to his everyday life as “ugly monotonous child’s play”. The only hint of excitement in the narrator’s life that we get is the girl he is infatuated with, and the “Araby” bazaar. But in the end, he gets to the bazaar, which is dark, closed off, and unwelcoming, and he gives up on the girl as well. The narrator is constantly dealing with defeat in this story with his uncle forgetting about him and coming home late, the train to the bazaar being delayed, and the woman at the stall discouraging him. This story is about wanting more out of life and not succeeding, which is supported by the last line where the narrator refers to himself as a “creature driven and derided by vanity”, which means that he let beautiful and promising things such as the girl and the bazaar lead him into despair.