Araby – Interpretive Questions1. Joyce is not subtle in describing the setting as bleak and the adults as cold. There is an absence of life surrounding the boy: “moldy…. littered waste… gloomy… cold houses…. … silent street… dark and muddy alleys.” The adults are ghosts: “the boys are surrounded by “shadows of people” whose houses “looked at each other with unperturbed brown faces.” Joyce conjures up an image of the cold Irish soul and the uninhabited, detached street, with the houses personified and more alive than its residents.2. One allusion is the reference to "Arabia", which suggests a romance and a world (Arabia) distant from the immediate situation. This mysterious and exotic world contrasts with the mundane physical setting of the story. The boy's house is set in a garden, which is an allusion to the Garden of Eden, as it contains a "central apple tree". This contrasts with the physical environment in which he stands alone among “a few scattered bushes” and is overshadowed by the desolation of the garden. The three books that the former tenant, a priest who died in the boy's house, allude to a past that once had religious vitality. This contrasts with the lack of spirituality in the immediate situation.3. From the main character's point of view, the beauty of Mangan's sister contrasts with the grayness and dullness of the setting. The images of her white neck, soft hair and the movement of her figure suggest that she is a saint. She is always surrounded by light, as if by a halo. This choice of imagery contrasts with the darkness and lack of beauty in the physical environment.4. The main character's actions towards Mangan's sister are timid and immature. He follows her, passes by her in silence... in the middle of the paper... the story. The boy, entering the new experiences of first love, has an idealistic and confused interpretation of love. Despite all the evidence of the dead house on a dead street in a dying city, he is determined to carry the girl's image like a "chalice" through the "crowds of enemies" and to protect her in the "places most hostile to romance." His search ends when he arrives in Araby and realizes with great torment that it is not at all what he imagined. There was no enchantment in Araby. The boy has placed all his love and faith in a world that does not exist except in his imagination. He feels angry and betrayed. He realizes his own vanity (meaning the futility of life in Dublin), his own stupidity and waste of time, finally seeing himself as "the creature driven and mocked by vanity". He realizes that he has been blinded by an ideal of love and faith.