""
ends with this passage:
Gazing up into the darkness I saw
myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and
anger.
The narrator speaks these words as he leaves the
bazaar after failing to find a gift for Mangan's sister that will impress her and win her love
and approval. The passage expresses his disillusionment and the end of his dreams. The bazaar,
Araby, had lived in the narrator's mind as a place of beauty and enchantment in contrast to the
drabness of his life on North Richmond Street. To him it held the allure of romance. He says,
"The syllables of the word Araby [sic] . . . cast an Eastern
enchantment over me."
The narrator's illusions about Araby coincide with
his feelings of first love for Mangan's sister. When he learns she wants to go to the bazaar but
cannot, he promises to bring her a gift from Araby. He thus goes on a quest to win the heart of
the woman he loves, a romantic adventure.
Araby turns out to be a cavernous
warehouse filled with cheap goods. There is no enchantment. Araby is ordinary. Arriving at
closing time, the narrator finds the lights going out and the help going home. He leaves, angry
and disillusioned. He blames himself for being so foolish in believing that somehow his life
could become more beautiful and exciting than the circumstances in which he
lived.
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