In Araby, James Joyce depicts the narrator as a typical preadolescent boy. Outwardly, he acts as most young boys would, venturing through muddy lanes and nearby stables as the narrator describes. Internally, he is self-deceptive, which is shown in his false idea of the adult world and willingness to pursue it. The young narrator is introverted but does not look at himself introspectively, and so he often seems to act irrationally. The narrator’s actions are a result of his naïveté, emotional confusion, and obsessive tendencies.
The narrator is naïve in his view of the world and other people. He sees the priest, a former resident of his house, as very charitable for leaving all his money to others in his will, completely overlooking the fact that possessions do not matter to a person after death. He does not understand what the adult world is really like but desires a “grown-up” life. He emulates his own idea of a “grown-up” life in his …show more content…
When he takes up the task of attending the bazaar and obtaining a souvenir, he becomes extremely impatient. Simply waiting for the bazaar is tedious and agonizing for him. He neglects his school work and daily tasks, dismissing them as “ugly monotonous child’s play.” He is so fixated on this single upcoming event that he cannot concentrate on anything else. Even after arriving, he could only remember his purpose there with great effort, since he had been so narrowly focused on merely arriving. His obsessiveness is shown most clearly in his attraction to Mangan’s sister, which is the central element of the story. The narrator recounts that he would watch for her through the window every day merely to walk behind her. He states that “her image accompanied [him] even in places the most hostile to romance.” The narrator means this to be a poetic description of his love, but it only reinforces that he is incessantly fixated on