The features of the modern novel like realism, a quest for romantic love, an event of everyday life and frankness in sexual matters are exhibited in the story Araby. In the story, Joyce intends to portray the paralysis of modern life whether it is intellectual, or moral, or spiritual. The story is a depiction of everyday life of Mangan, an ordinary boy becoming an adult who looks back on a maturing experience of his youth. The boy is on a religious or spiritual quest while his sister represents a kind of goddess or an angel to him. The religious imagery indicates the absence of a spiritual vitality from Irish life. The emptiness, the decay and the banal dialogue show how religion is reduced to just empty ritual. The world of romance and imagination of the narrator is marred by the banal and tawdry world of actual experience. The final sentence shows the boy’s epiphany; he has known the absurdity of both Araby and his quest. The blind street and his trip to Araby appeared leading him to somewhere, but in reality, he stands where he began his quest.
