earthly "Virgin Mary."  His love for her is pure, and he assumes that she is likewise pure, as his religion has taught him.  He has not learned yet that life is not as clear cut as the lessons he is taught in catechisms.  When he sees the hypocrisy of the church-sponsored bazaar, and hears the woman flirting, and recognizes finally that secular life is not as pretty as his religion has suggested.  He sees church as shine and not substance.  The suggestion is that not only has this experience caused him to question himself and the morality of his society, but also his own faith.

One theme of Araby concerns innocence and experience.  It could be phrased in terms of the narrator's disappointment in love: "By showing the narrator's romantic view of Mangan in contrast to the bleakness of the neighborhood and the tawdry nature of the carnival, where he hopes to find an item to please her and win her love, James Joyce suggests that romance belongs to the world of the young not the old, and that it is doomed to fail in a world flawed by materialism and a lack of beauty." Evidence would include the early description of the girl, a description of the neighborhood, his plans to go to Araby, and then what he finds when he gets there.  The final sentence of the story could be analyzed closely for a strong conclusion for it shows the humiliation he undergoes when he learns how foolish romance and idealism are.

Concerning Joyce's "Araby" the enotes Study Guide on the story lists three themes revealed within the story.  I'll list the three and give a brief explanation of each:

• Alienation and Loneliness:  the boy tells no one about his feelings for Mangan's sister--not his friends, his family, nor the girl herself.  He is isolated in his crush and in his illusion, and later, in his awakening or epiphany.
• Change and Transformation:  the boy undergoes significant emotional growth, changing from an innocent boy to a disillusioned adolescent in an instant.  This is a major step toward adulthood.
• God and Religion:  the boy at first sees himself as a religious hero and Mangan's sister as the embodiment of the Virgin Mary.  He is unable to separate the spiritual from the secular.  Later, when he experiences his epiphany, it is partly a realization that he is just a boy, Mangan's sister is just a girl, and also, that Araby is just a mediocre place to buy crap, sponsored by the church in order to make money for the church.