Araby" is a story about a boy's first love. On a deeper level, however, it is a story about the world in which he lives - a world inimical to ideals and dreams. The allure of new love and distant places mingles with the familiarity of everyday drudgery, with frustrating consequences. Mangan’s sister embodies this mingling, since she is part of the familiar surroundings of the narrator’s street as well as the exotic promise of the bazaar. She is a “brown figure” who both reflects the brown facades of the buildings that line the street and evokes the skin color of romanticized images of Arabia that flood the narrator’s head. The narrator's love for Mangan's sister is simply a desire for change, and much like the Araby bazaar, is just a romanticized element that represents the wishful thinking of the narrator. The narrator arrives at the bazaar only to encounter flowered teacups and English accents, not the freedom of the enchanting East. As the bazaar closes down, he realizes that Mangan’s sister will fail his expectations as well, and that his desire for her is actually only a vain wish for change. The story concludes with the boy experiencing an epiphany, but not a positive one. Instead of reaffirming his love or realizing that he does not need gifts to express his feelings for Mangan’s sister, the narrator simply gives up. Time does not adhere to the narrator’s visions of his relationship. The story presents this frustration as universal: the narrator is nameless, the girl is always “Mangan’s sister” as though she is any girl next door, and the story closes with the narrator imagining himself as a creature.
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