James Joyce's story, "Araby" is the narrative of a boy who idealizes his love for the neighbor he watches from his window. Through his glass of romanticized ideas, the boy ignores his "brown" and bleak, winter surroundings and perceives the girl as a maiden for whom he will venture on a "Holy Grail Quest": I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes," he imagines one day at the market.
The word Araby connotes the exotic, the intriguing enticement of an imaginary world. In the land of Araby, the land of spices, there are also dangerous snakes. In his essay, "Araby: A Quest for Meaning," the critic Freimarck writes,
The very title of the story is the first of several images promising the apocalyptic world of romance, but containing the demonic.
The boy follows his dream to its bleak conclusion: He has been deceived by his delusions. The bazaar is filled with cheap goods and petty, gossiping people. In his epiphany, he states,
I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.
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