Literary modernism is characterized by the word 'uncertainty'. The modernist movement stood for progress, freedom, and social equality. The authors or modernist works did not support institutions like the government and religious organizations, but their works were inspired by the disillusionment created after World War I. Among many modernist authors is James Joyce. Joyce is the author of Dubliners, a collection of fifteen short stories published in 1914. One of these short stories is Araby. The literary devices used by Joyce in his short story Araby display aspects of modernism. Joyce uses diction, characters, and themes to show evidence of an epiphany and psychological conflict, which are both aspects of literary modernism.
In the story Araby, an epiphany occurs in the main character. Joyce uses a change in character tone to help the reader identify the point where the Boy has an epiphany. The story starts out with a young boy living on North Richmond Street in Dublin, Ireland. Despite the dismal setting, the Boy sees the light and brightness of the street, just as any innocent child would. The Boy plays with his friends, even in the biting cold of the winter, until his "body glows" (Joyce). He develops an infatuation with a girl known as Mangan's sister, to whom he promises to bring back something from the Araby Bazaar. Here he is a young, innocent boy who has a crush on a girl. He goes through so much trouble to get to the bazaar, that when he gets there, he is extremely disappointed in what he sees. He realizes that the bazaar is just a place where a person can buy things, and that Mangan's sister is just a girl with whom he had a meaningless conversation with. The fact that the Boy was "remembering with difficulty why he had come." (Joyce) shows that he does not even care anymore about the bazaar and getting the gift for Mangan's sister. With this, Joyce uses a change in character to display the epiphany in the story.
