It's important to remember that the narrative of this text is a first-person objective one; this means that the narrator is a participant in the story who is reflecting on it after the events have taken place. This narrator seems to be an adult remembering his childhood experience with love. He describes the street on which he lived as "blind"; this literally means that it is a dead-end, but, figuratively, it seems to connote the little boy's own inability to see the world for what it is. He and the other boys watch Mangan's sister from "[their] shadow," and she is "defined by the light from the half-opened door." Moreover, the narrator says that he would lay on the floor in his home's front room watching for her. "The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash so that [he] could not be seen." Again, the word "blind" describes the window treatment, but it seems, again, to figuratively describe the narrator. He doesn't really know anything about Mangan's sister—he just has a child's crush—but his feelings for her feel so big and so real to him; they seem like the most important thing in the world. His view of her is almost always somehow blocked by darkness or window blinds or shadow; even when he imagines her, his "eyes were often full of tears." Later, the narrator even claims to be "thankful that [he] could see so little. All [his] senses seemed to desire to veil themselves." It's as though his mind was attempting to protect his childlike innocence.
On his way to the Araby bazaar, however, the narrator seems to see the various lights that seem to mark his path. He sees the "twinkling river," the "lighted dial of a clock," and even the "colored lamps" over a cafe. However, "the greater part of the hall was in darkness" when he arrives at the long-desired bazaar. He hears the clinking of coins being counted, the flirtatious and empty conversation among the young lady and the gentlemen, and someone calls to say that "the light was out" in the gallery and that the "upper part of the hall was now completely dark." It is only now, in the darkness, that the narrator begins to see clearly: he is "a creature driven and derided by vanity; and [his] eyes burned with anguish and despair." He finally sees the truth: the world does not and will not revolve around his love. He was blind to everything but his own feelings, and those feelings are meaningless to the world.
The passages of the story "Araby" that bear most relevance to the themes of light, vision, and beauty are those dealing with Mangan's sister. To summarize the story's viewpoint, Mangan's sister is attractive to the boy because she is only half-illuminated to him, both literally and physically. When she appears in the doorway, the light only hits the curve or her neck and "one side" of her dress; correspondingly, the entire setting of the story (the boy's entire world), North Richmond Street, is described as "blind." Though Mangan's sister is the focus of the story, Joyce does not give her a name or a concrete physical description; she is only described as "brown" on some occasions, and "white" on others. At the center of the story, the boy says, "I was thankful that I could see so little." This proves to be a defining statement once he arrives at the Araby bazaar and actually watches a flirtatious interaction between a shop girl and two male customers. Upon seeing what appears to him to be the frivolity of dating and romance (as opposed to the chivalrous romantic quest he imagined it to be). Upon actually being confronted with and "seeing" romance for what it is, his eyes begin to burn with tears, and the charade of Mangan's sister (resulting from his inability to "see" her, or to interact with and understand her as other than a symbol) ceases to exist.
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