Literary Analysis of Araby

Araby The setting of Araby is described within the first three small paragraphs; it conveys very vivid imagery as you would see it in the eyes of a young boy, noticing details of colors and textures of his surroundings. You soon get a sense of the narrator’s simple minded thinking as he is only a young boy. Going into the adolescent years, the narrator experiences new emotions and finds himself an immense love interest in his friend’s sister who lives down the street. As he spends much of his time admiring him from a far, he finally speaks with her. After speaking with her he is filled with so much excitement that he finds the things had once found exciting are now boring and unsatisfying, the narrator tells us, “I watched my master's face pass from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was not beginning to idle. I could not call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child's play, ugly monotonous child's play.”(42). This portrays the future struggles he will encounter as he starts to lose his innocence through experience. In the third paragraph is quite noticeable of how innocent the narrator actually is. As he develops a crush on his friend’s sister, even though he has never spoken a word to her, but admires her from afar, “we watched her from our shadow peer up and down the street.”(40). The only contact he had with her is when his group of friends would go up to her doorstep as she was waiting for her younger brother, “We waited to see whether she would remain or go in and, if she remained, we left our shadow and walked up to Mangan's steps resignedly. She was waiting for us, her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door. Her brother always teased her before he obeyed, and I stood by the railings looking at her.”(40). But he was completely infatuated with her as he cannot help but describe the way she looked, “Her dress swung as she