James Joyce's short story “Araby” is told from what appears to be the first-person point of view of a boy living just north of Dublin. As events unfold, the boy struggles with dreams and reality. From the descriptions of his street and the neighbors who live nearby, the reader gets a picture of what the boy's life is like. His love interest also plays an important role in his quest from childhood to adulthood. The final trip to the bazaar is what pushes him over the edge towards a foreshadowed realization. The reader has the impression that the narrator is the boy who thinks back to his epiphany as a mature man. The narrator of "Araby" loses his innocence because of where he lives, his love interest and his trip to the bazaar. In the opening scenes of the story the reader has the impression that the boy lives in the undertow of his city. His symbolic descriptions offer more detail about what he thinks of his path. The boy says, “North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street [its houses were inhabited by] dignified lives within them, looking at each other with stolid brown faces” (Joyce 984). This shows that the boy feels that the street and the city have become presumptuous and unoriginal. While he was too young to understand it at the time, the mature narrator states that he realizes it now. The boy is isolated in the story also because he states that when the neighborhood children go to play for him it is a waste of time. He feels there are other things he could do besides playing with the other kids. It is here that the narrator begins to become aware that not everything is what it seems. He notices the smallest details but still can't put them together. As the story progresses you will see that... halfway through the paper... when you get to the end the boy has made a breakthrough and matures immediately in the last sentence. Something like this doesn't happen in a few seconds. Therefore readers have the feeling that the narrator is the now grown up boy. He is remembering his epiphany within the story allowing readers to realize that the aspiration to live and dream continues for the rest of one's life. The narrator remembers this story as a transformation from innocence to knowledge. Imagination and reality clearly become two different things for the narrator; an awareness that everyone goes through at some point in their lives. It may not be as dramatic as this story, but it happens gradually and the innocence is no longer there. Works Cited Joyce, James. "Arabia." 1914. Literature and ourselves. Henderson, Gloria, ed. Boston, Longman Press. 2009. 984-988.