Araby, one of the stories in The Dubliners, which is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, in 1914, is basically about a young boy's infatuation with his friend's sister. The boy, also the narrator, is infatuated with Mangan’s sister and always thinks and fantasizes about her, catching all the opportunities to impress her, such as going to the Araby bazaar and bringing her back something since she cannot go there because her convent is a retreat. After going to the bazaar, seeing a young woman minding the stall is engaged in a conversation with two young men, pulls him back from his imagination to reality, making him feel angry. The story is quite simple on the boundary and is written in the first-person point of view, but implicates many unnoticeable details that are shown in the story.
One thing that everyone will experience and is inevitable is coming of age. Coming of age basically means a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult, to simplify it, it could mean a young person being mature because of something that happened. In this story, the author is standing from an adult’s viewpoint recalling one thing that happened in his childhood, also reflecting back his childhood. As the boy found he was infatuated with Mangan’s sister, he lost interest in playing with his friend and became rebellious to his aunt and uncle, and teachers. He’s thinking he is the one who is more mature than his peers, is different from them, and can think independently like an adult, also showing his own identity. However, after he’s been pulled back from his infatuation with Mangan’s sister, he realized he didn’t feel any satisfaction, but also lost the precious quality of a child, which is naïve.
All the things the narrator does that look ridiculous and unbelievable are because he’s sucked into his imagination of Mangan’s sister. Imagination is always in our minds, and there’s always a gap between imagination and reality. It could be very different. All the parts of Mangan’s sister that the narrator thinks are all his imagination, the narrator didn’t write anything about her attraction to him or any shared conversations. The market that Mangan’s sister told him about is a bazaar and is romantic in his imagination but is very disappointing in reality since it is full of English sellers. He went to the bazaar because he wanted to make Mangan’s sister notice more of him, worship her, but not love. What he does for Mangan’s sister is only vanity. He seems to be more mature, but actually, it's more in his imagination, back to reality, it’s nothing but his vanity and selfishness.
From the narrator’s imagination, just like everyone, he makes things idealized. It’s not surprising that he will think of things from the benefits part. Idealization, which means the action of regarding or representing something as perfect or better than in reality, is what most people will do and might cost some consequence. The narrator’s idealization is mostly based on his imagination of all the attractions. Because he’s fallen into his idealized infatuation with Mangan’s sister, he began to stay away from his friends, thinking what they do are boring and stupid, and he also no longer follows the order or being positive. These are all the significances that he earns from his idealization. He changes his attitude toward all the things that happen, staying still in his idealization, but the consequence of this is that he changes his attitude, and makes himself an “objectionable” child.
According to the story, the narrator (the boy), talking in an adult view about a story that happens in his childhood. The story itself is quite easy, just talking about the first experience of the narrator having a crush, and how he feels about this, both before and after he focuses back on reality. This experience is not just a simple story that the author recalls, but is also a precious opportunity to come to age. However, imagination and reality are very opposite, and one of the reasons that the narrator had a crush on Mangan’s sister is because of his idealization of true reality. It’s the growth of mental and the knowledge of love for a young boy.
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