Attina Zhao Discussion 5

“Araby” is not a love story, it is a story about a boy’s fantasy about being in love. The young narrator is infatuated with the idea of Mangan’s sister, but not enough to actually flesh her out as an actual person, but as a two-dimensional being to be admired. Thus, throughout the entire text, he does not refer to her by name once, instead only referring to her as her identity as Mangan’s sister. “Araby” is a coming-of-age story, through which the young narrator passes through a dark, lonely path and goes on a journey, to return changed and wiser. He becomes disillusioned, or rather, following the theme of light and dark, enlightened, as to the realities of his delusions of love and the grandeur of the bazaar. Arriving at the end, when stalls are closing and the lights go out, his childish dreams come to an end as well.