The Dubliners by James Joyce - The Symbol of the Church in Araby Joyce's short story "Araby" is full of symbolic images of a church. It opens and closes with strong symbols and, in the body of the story, images are shaped by young people), the Irish narrator's impressions of the effect the Church of Ireland has on the Irish people. The boy is firmly determined to bestow upon someone within this Church the sanctity that he believes should be the natural state of all within it, but a succession of experiences forces him to see that his determination is in vain. At the climax of the story, when he realizes that his dreams of holiness and love are not consistent with the real world, his anger and anguish are directed not towards the Church, but towards himself as "a guided creature from vanity". In addition to the images in the story that are symbolic of the Church and its effect on the people who belong to it, there are descriptive words and phrases that add to this representative meaning. The story opens with a description of the Dublin neighborhood where the boy lives. Surprisingly evocative for a church, the image shows the ineffectiveness of the Church as a vital force in the lives of the neighborhood's inhabitants, the faithful within the Church. North Richmond Street consists of two rows of houses with "unflappable brown faces" (the pews) leading down to the tall "uninhabited house" (the empty altar). The boy's house is immersed in a garden in its natural state which would be like Paradise, since it contains a "central apple tree"; however, those who should have cared for it have allowed it to become desolate, and the central tree stands alone among "a few scattered bushes. At dusk when the boy and his companions... in the center of the card... as the sister of Mangan: His words are banal and worldly. In a sudden flash of insight the boy sees that his faith and passion have been blind he sees in the "two men counting money on a tray" a symbol of the moneylenders in the temple. He lets the coins fall into his pocket. The lights in the hall go out, his "church" is in darkness eyes as he sees himself as a "creature driven and mocked by vanity," whose "foolish blood" has made him see secular desires as symbols of true faith. He feels guilty in this moment of being so confused by his ideals that he is unable to see the world as it is traditional symbols of ineffably sacred beauty) only a poor imitation of true beauty. Understandably his disillusionment causes him "anguish and anger."