Student Essay on Joyce's Araby: a Double Focus

"Araby" is a story of initiation, of a boy's quest for the ideal. It compares the boy in Araby as viewed by the reader to the same character as viewed by the adult reflecting back on his memories.

Boy or Man: the Double Focus

On one hand "Araby" is a story of initiation, of a boy's quest for the ideal. Although the quest ends in failure, it results in an inner awareness and the boy's first step into manhood. On another hand the story consists of a grown man's remembered experience, for the story is told in retrospect by a man who reflects back to a particular moment of intense meaning and insight. James Joyce's fascinating double focus: the boy's first experience, and the man's reflection to the unforgotten moments of his childhood provides for the dramatic rendering of a simple story of first love told by a narrator who, with his wider adult vision, can employ the sophisticated use of irony and symbolic imagery necessary to open a window to his soul telling us.....