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The narrator is enamored with Mangan’s sister and his infatuation only continues to grow. Every morning, he lies on the floor by the window in the front room of his house so that he can see when she walks out her front door. He rushes outside and proceeds to follow her as soon as she departs. The narrator is too charmed and too afraid to actually communicate with the girl. Instead of walking with her or making any contact, he walks a few paces behind her until their contradicting journeys force him to pass her.
The narrator and Mangan’s sister interact very little, but she is always in his thoughts. He explains that this is the case even when he is in places that are “hostile to romance” such as crowded streets filled with intoxicated men and women who are loudly attempting to sell their wares. Even the most basic and unromantic task can trigger a daydream about Mangan’s sister. For example, the narrator wanders in a daze while food shopping with his aunt at a busy marketplace on a Saturday evening. The narrator is unable to focus among the packed and noisy stalls and is only able to think about the romanticized object of his desire. He is so moved by the strength of his passions and so tortured that he cannot make himself interact with Mangan’s sister that he often finds himself on the verge of tears. One rainy evening, the sheer magnitude of his desire is so consuming that he sequesters himself alone in the back room of his house and murmurs “O love! O love!” to himself in the darkness.
The narrator’s infatuation is clearly intense but he fears that he will never gather the courage to speak with the girl and express his feelings. However, one morning, Mangan’s sister addresses the narrator directly and asks him if he plans to go to Araby, a Dublin bazaar. She laments that she cannot go because her school is having a retreat that week. The narrator is so stunned that his love is speaking to him and so caught off guard by the interaction that he cannot even remember if he answers yes or no to her innocent question. Having recovered from the initial shock of the conversation, the narrator seizes on the opportunity to ingratiate himself to the girl and offers to bring her back something from the bazaar since she cannot attend herself. He immediately asks his aunt for permission to go to Araby; she is surprised by his request but says that he can attend that Saturday night. The narrator is overcome with eager, restless waiting and fidgety tension in anticipation of the bazaar. He cannot focus in school, much to the frustration of his instructors, because he finds the lessons tedious as they distract him from thinking about Mangan’s sister and the gifts that he might buy her to obtain her favor.
