Disillusionment of Life Marleigh Russell

In James Joyce's "Araby", an arcane glimpse into the life of a young boy is revealed as he passes from a state of naivete into cognizance of his life. We watch as he leads himself through a fateful-ending journey in which he realizes his disillusionment about love, adults and the world he lives in. The boy is a representative of each of us as we mature in our dark and dirty world and discontinue looking at life through rose-colored glass. Joyce incorporates imagery of light and dark in the boy's journey to reveal how we, like the boy, are disillusioned by the light and upon discovery of the true darkness of our world our innocence is lost.

Joyce begins the story by depicting the naïve life that we, as humans, develop our childhood in. By exposing the gloomy and dismal environment that the boy resides in we begin to perceive the narrow-mindedness that we initially have about our own world. The dark surroundings were a comfortable setting to the boy, because it was what he had grown accustomed to and familiar with. He and his friends played in the "dark dripping gardens" (106), along the "dark muddy lanes" (106), and in the town's shadows with little fear. The darkness and its shadows...