"Araby," is a story centered around first love, ideals and dreams. The setting of this story becomes the main idea. This city, in which the narrator grew up in has helped him grow into maturity. The narrator seems to be terribly infatuated with a girl, who happens to be his friend Mangan's older sister, throughout this story. Throughout the story, he watches this girl's doorstep every morning and becomes terribly excited as she leaves her home. When the girl tells the narrator how she is unable to go to the Araby, he tells her, if he goes he will bring her something back. He is presented with an opportunity to exhibit his love for her. In the beginning of the story, the narrator exhibits his quietness and innocence; the street he lives on is "blind" and "quiet" much like the narrator. The house he describes at the end of the street could represent the boy's detachment from the real world. His friend Mangan's sister seems to provide him with an escape from his everyday life.
At the end of the story, the narrator feels very disillusioned. His trip to the bazaar had been unsuccessful. First he arrived to the bazaar late because his uncle forgot about him; then he was unable to find a gift for Mangan's sister, he felt scorned by the merchants; and last he suddenly found himself in a dark room. This series of events left the narrator feeling his eagerly anticipated trip had been in vain.
In the end the narrator learned that it is close to impossible to transform fantasies into reality. He treated the simplicity of a gift as a window of opportunity. When he became aware of how vain his method may have been, he realized that reality is not simple at all and that in the real world, things don't always happen as we want them to, i.e., bazaars close and the world does not stop for us. With this realization, he gained a new self-awareness.