37 pages • 1-hour read
Araby
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Themes
Love and Religion
In “Araby,” the narrator is fixated with religion. As someone who attends a Catholic school, is raised in a Catholic country, and grows up in a house formerly occupied by a dead Catholic priest, the narrator views the world through the framework of the Catholic religion. He does not have any experience of romantic love, so he frames his affection for Mangan’s sister in a religious way. Love and religion are bound together as a theme because the narrator does not know how else to express his devotion and idealized love outside of religion.
The narrator describes his love for Mangan’s sister in religious terms. In a literal sense, he begins to worship her. He thinks about her when he is alone, and his thoughts are muttered like devoted, feverish prayers as he clasps his hands together. These “strange prayers and praises” (250) are the only way that the narrator knows to convey a feeling of devotion or love; he admits that he does not understand the true meaning of what he is saying or why he is acting in this manner, though he cannot think of any other way to express his emotion. The narrator’s Catholic upbringing has equipped him with the tools to express religious love but not the tools to express romantic love. As a naïve young man, he confuses the two, and his romantic devotion takes on a religious tenor. For the narrator, love for Mangan’s sister becomes a private religion in which he is the only follower.
The narrator understands the framework of religion, but he has little time for actual faith. His references to God and Catholicism are only superficial. The dead priest is not interesting because of his faith but because of the material possessions he left behind. Likewise, the Catholic school the boy attends is just another building on his street. The street itself—where the boys play their games—is a more important institution in the eyes of the narrator. As such, his interest in religion only becomes more profound when it is married to actual emotion. When the narrator develops an intense romantic interest in Mangan’s sister, he treats his emotions as though they were a religion. His dedication to romantic love and his disregard for anything but the superficial dressing of spiritual love hints at an innate hollowness in contemporary Irish society, in which Catholicism has become a culture more than an actual religion. Ultimately, however, neither the narrator’s religion nor his love is anything more than shallow.
Innocence and Shame
“Araby” is narrated from the perspective of a naïve young man. The narrator’s innocence is a complicated theme in the short story as he eventually becomes ashamed of the naivety with which he has acted. While the story is presented as the regretful recollections of an older, more experienced narrator, the story is conveyed through the eyes of the narrator’s younger self. The youngster’s innocence is shaped by what is absent from his life: His parents are not mentioned, and he lives with his aunt and uncle, suggesting that his mother and father are either dead or absent. He lacks parental guidance in a life already marked by some vague tragedy, so the narrator’s innocence and naivety are sympathetic traits. He simply has had no one to teach him otherwise.
The narrator’s love for Mangan’s sister is a formative moment in his life. The unrequited relationship and the doomed trip to Araby’s Bazaar are the points in the narrator’s life when he is forced to confront his immaturity and his lack of experience of worldly matters. His behavior makes him ashamed to some degree. He separates himself from his friends and watches them through the window, and he obsesses over Mangan’s sister. He lacks an understanding of romantic love so devotes himself to her with religious fervor. Throughout this time, however, his mistaken belief in his own maturity is betrayed by his reliance on his aunt and uncle. He wants to prove that his affection for Mangan’s sister is real, but he relies on his uncle to give him money to visit the bazaar, reiterating that he is still very much an innocent young child.
The narrator becomes aware of his own foolishness when he finally visits the market. At Araby’s Bazaar, the shopkeeper treats him with bemused disdain. The narrator is reminded that he is still just a child trying to wrestle with adult ideas. His epiphany is fraught with shame. The narrator realizes that he is nothing more than a naïve young boy who does not even have a plan for when he reaches the bazaar. He claims to feel overwhelmed by “anguish and anger” (254), pitying his own innocent immaturity. However, even this moment hints that he is still not yet fully mature enough to deal with his emotions. Just like his declarations of love, his declarations of shame are wildly exaggerated. No one has spoken to him, and no one has noticed him; all the narrator’s emotions are internal and private, so his burning shame can remain hidden from the world. He feels a pang of alienation and regret but frames this in the most exaggerated way possible, once again overemphasizing his emotions as a pique of childlike rancor.
Death and Absence
The narrator of “Araby” is subtly concerned with death and absence. As he tells the story of a pivotal moment in his life, his carefully avoids certain subjects. The most pressing of these subjects is his parents. The narrator is a young boy being raised by his aunt and uncle. Though his parents’ fate is never mentioned, they are either dead or—at the very least—not a part of his life. Their absence is keenly felt as the narrator is shown to be an emotionally naïve young man who lacks any practical tools with which to express his emotions. The parental figures in his life are, by their very definition, not his parents. At the moment when he depends on his uncle the most, his uncle goes to a pub and spends the day getting drunk. The narrator never mentions his parents, but their absence (and potential death) clearly has a profound effect on the narrator. His parents exist in the negative space in his story; the less they are mentioned, the more their influence is missed.
Death can be both influential and present, however. The old priest who lived in the house before the narrator’s aunt and uncle is still very much a presence in the home. His money and his furniture are gone but some of his old possessions remain. His old books and a rusty bicycle pump in the garden are a more tangible link to the priest’s past than any mention of the narrator’s parents. This material legacy from the priest hints that the physical world is more important and relevant to the young narrator. He does not know how to express emotions such as love, nor does he indicate that he wants to talk about grief or loss. However, he is happy to talk about a stack of old paperback books which were left behind by the priest. The books are tangible objects which can be known, touched, and read. The narrator understands the priest’s death because he can deal with what the priest has left behind.
Absence is a key influence on the narrator even in a positive sense. He falls in love with Mangan’s sister, and this love comes to define him, forcing him to separate himself from his friends and undertake an absurd trip to the bazaar to demonstrate his affection. However, Mangan’s sister is largely absent from his life. They only interact one time, when they make small talk on the street. For Mangan’s sister, the small talk about the bazaar is just a conversation. For the narrator, it is a pivotal moment in his life. Even in her absence, Mangan’s sister is a profound influence on the narrator. Her existence shows that, even when he is dealing with love instead of death, the narrator struggles to understand absence.
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