In James Joyce's short story Araby he is successful in creating an intense narrative. He does this in such a way that he enables the reader to feel what is it actually like to live in Dublin at the turn of the century when the Catholic Church had an enormous amount of authority over Dubliner's. The reader is able to feel the narrators exhausting struggle to escape this influence of the Catholic Church by replacing it with a materialistic driven love for a girl. James writes Araby from a first person narrative and in doing so he may have taken the opportunity to make a long awaited confession that is so deeply embedded in his mind he is able to remember it as it had happened only but a day prior. Joyce creates a dull, drab, uninspiring image of Dubliner's through the use of the nameless narrator. Even though we are under the impression that the young boy is the narrator the reader begins to develop an understanding that the narrator is someone much older and sophisticated. The reader comes to this realization because of the choice of words and deep meaning the narrator chooses to describe his intense emotions. Also the reader begins to uncover the deep meaning that lye's beneath the surface meaning. We then begin to understand that the narrator's point of view is too complex and difficult for an adolescent boy to comprehend at that stage in his life. This gives rise to the idea that an older man, one who has grown up and became enlightened and knowledgeable possible Joyce himself who is looking back at himself as an adolescent boy. The narrator confesses his vanity and blinded emotions that were driven by materialistic possessions, which he thought held the key to the girl's heart.
The way in which Joyce writes this story he includes an immense amount of detail and imagery that quickly captures the attention of the reader and is so real the reader feels as if they were actually a part of the story.