Araby is the story of an older man looking back at life. He is reliving his feelings toward his first love, and his first real loss of innocence. The narrator of the story has strong feelings for his best friend Mangan's older sister, and spends much of his time watching her. He sees his opportunity in a bazaar that she cannot go to, but the results that the narrator gets, are not the results that he had hoped for.
The result that the narrator does get is a sense of disillusionment. There are several different types of disillusionment that he suffers. The narrator has spent all week looking forward to the opportunity that has presented itself to him. However, when the day finally arrives he is unable to proceed as he has planned. With the lack of his Uncle's arrival, his dream slips away. When he does get to the "splendid bazaar" that is Araby, it is not what the narrator expected. He finds an ordinary hall, with most of its stalls closed, staffed by ordinary people. He finds there a reflective environment, such as "that which pervades a church after a service." When the opportunity to purchase something presents itself, he does not take it. He spends several minutes watching the young English lady, and slowly walks way. As the light goes out he contemplates the fantasy he has built for himself, and the futility of it. He is left with an empty dream, and the awareness of that fact.
In the course of his travels to the bazaar, the narrator learns a valuable lesson about himself and the world around him. Araby is the story of the narrator's loss of innocence. He learns that his thoughts lately have been vainly wasted wishing on a possibility that does not exist. He has spent his time watching a girl waiting for his opportunity, knowing that it would come, when it never will. He has learned the difference between dreams such as the strangeness of the bazaar, and the reality of the closing booths, manned by its superficial people.