Every author's writing reflects some part about themselves and their childhood. Author James Joyce's stories The Encounter and Araby give the reader an idea about the Dublin of his youth. By the way Joyce writes these stories, one can discern that he is essentially trapped in a personal hell of paralysis, always trying to escape the guidelines of Dublin's strict educational society.

In An Encounter, Joyce creates the characters of adolescent school boys learning what the real world is about. The narrator and his friend Mahony are bored in school and, naturally as kids, they seek excitement in their lives. Because of their fading interest in Father Butler's teachings of Roman history, the students decide to be rebellious and venture out into the real world to see what they have been missing as children. Once Mahony and the Narrator escape the confines of Butler's mind-numbing lectures, the Narrator...