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“I watched my master’s face pass from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was not beginning to idle. I could not call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child’s play, ugly monotonous child’s play.”
In this quote, the young boy of “Araby” has just spoken with Mangan’s sister, and now finds himself entirely uninterested and bored by the demands of the classroom. Instead, he thinks of Mangan’s sister, of the upcoming bazaar, and of anything but what rests before him. This scene forecasts the boy’s future frustration with the tedious details that foil his desires, and it also illustrates the boy’s struggle to define himself as an adult, even in the space of the classroom structured as a hierarchy between master and student.
“From the front window I saw my companions playing below in the street. Their cries reached me weakened and indistinct and, leaning my forehead against the cool glass, I looked over at the dark house where she lived.”
Here, the narrator stands inside his home and watches his friends play in the street instead of going outside as well. This marks a key turning point in the narrator’s path to maturity. Instead of playing in the streets like he does at the start of the text, he chooses to stay indoors and reflect on his love for Mangan’s sister. In this deceptively insignificant moment, the narrator turns his back on the activities of childhood to embrace the sensual and romantic adult world.
