The short story Araby, from the collection called Dubliners, written by James Joyce, is a story that follows a love-struck boy who wants to impress his friend’s sister. The boy, who is eager to be able to give her something that will express his love for her, decides to head to the exclusive bazaar that is coming to town, called Araby, in hopes of buying a love-filled gift. Araby is rumored to have exotic things from faraway lands like Arabia, and the boy is desperate to be able to buy something worth keeping. However, his uncle doesn’t approve of the idea, and by the time the boy arrives, the bazaar is mostly closed, and a woman is engrossed in a conversation with two men and unwilling to help him. With the experience of the bazaar, the boy realizes how his dream world is different from the reality world and how harsh reality is. During his moment of epiphany, the boy also realizes that his love for the girl was just a moment of infatuation, not genuine love. James Joyce, in the paragraphs, weaves in love, imagination, reality, and maturity all in one story.
The world does not revolve around you. Everyday, there are at least a hundred things that happen that you cannot control. Your imagination and the reality of things don’t always match. But you can’t just ignore reality, because that is what you live in, not your imagination. In Araby, the boy, or narrator, is often tucked away in his imagination. Life goes as his imagination. He imagines himself with Mangan’s sister. The only problem is, he is so into his imagination that he doesn’t realize how the real world is any more. He thought that when he got to the bazaar, there would be plenty of cool, exotic stuff for him to buy. However, the truth was, there was basically nothing. In truth, the bazaar is just a shallow and commercialized one, while there is not even any direct contact or understanding with Mangan’s sister. The boy is so wrapped around his head that he does not realize that reality is not the same as his imagination, and things or people don’t always go as planned. His romantic ideas are just the opposite of the realistic truth, and the boy is not used to the harsh reality of life. Be present physically, and be present mentally. Otherwise, it is just as good as being physically absent and mentally absent. It’s either both, or none.
Don't sugarcoat things. Sooner or later, you’ll end up on the hard end of the deal, because you will have to face it sometime. Sprinkling powdered sugar on bitter melons doesn’t change anything but the taste. In the end, you are still eating bitter melons. You can’t escape from reality forever. The boy idealizes everything in his imagination so that he can escape from the harsh realities of life. However, this is not a good temporary or permanent solution because all it does is make the boy unprepared for real life and real situations. When he is still living the dream world in his imagination, he thinks that he is better than all the other kids. He leads a somewhat normal life, though he is rebellious to adults. Afterwards, however, reality comes crashing down in a 10 ton block and flattens him to smithereens. He learns that he is not better than his friends, but just though so, and that his love for Mangan’s sister is not genuine, just a short period of infatuation. From spending so much time living in real situations in the dream world, when the facade comes away, it is hard to adjust to the real world again. Like, what just happened? It is almost like peeling away a curtain that is blocking the boy’s view. Facades, curtains, veils and mists can only hold up for so long. Because soon enough, it drops or floats away, and you have to shield your eyes from the harsh, blinding truth.
Growing up means growing up physically and mentally. You begin to accept who you are and what role in the world you are to play. The world doesn’t revolve around you. With hard work, however, you can make the world spin a little slower just for you, though. Maturing and growing up also occurs to the boy in Araby. During his epiphany, he learns to grow up and actually live in the reality world, not just in the dream world. Before, he perceived the world from veiled eyes, He took the world as he thought it was, not how it really was. For example, he thought he was better than the other boys, but he wasn’t, he just thought so. Now, after the experience with the bazaar, however, he realizes that living in the reality world is so much more harsh, yet so much more worth it because it is what you actually live on, not your dream world. It is not like living on a cloud, where everything goes as planned and you are the only star. Reality is never nice to you. The only relief is that it will end. Or, you can make it better when you have the chance. Growing up means being able to actually accept the world for how it is, and accept yourself for how you are. Peel back that curtain, and now, look closely.
No, reality is always harsh. In Araby, from Dubliners, by James Joyce, the boy/the narrator learns that he is not the only center of attention, and he is actually the same as other boys. People are not worse than him. During his short trip to the bazaar, the boy also manages to unveil the realities of life from his dream version that he has been living in for so long. Because has, it is also harder for him to adjust back, because he is so used to living there. Your imagination comes from your own mind, and it idealizes everything so that you have the perfect image. Both imagination and reality can change how to perceive the rest of the world, but it is important to remember to never idealize everything to the point where it is perfect and that you need to be able to distinguish the difference between imagination and reality, so you know which to rely on and which time. Because the narrator learns to do this, he also grows up. Life is hard, but you just gotta keep moving forward.
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