Although "Araby" was a very short story, the author James Joyce did an impressive job of discussing very deep issues through his skills in using light, vision, and beauty. He is able to discuss things like religion, infatuation, and inner human feelings simply through descriptive words and what seems like a simple story at the surface. At the surface, "Araby" is a just the story of a boy's trip to the market to get a gift for a girl he has a crush on. Yet after careful canalization, the short story turns out to be a young man's struggle with religion, his love, and the realization that he is a very shallow person for being infatuated with the physical beauty of a woman. *With the very first line of "Araby," Joyce is being critical of the church during his time. "North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free."(404) Interestingly, James Joyce describes the street in terms of vision. He calls the street and its people "blind." Perhaps they are blinded by religion. Another very critical point here is that he describes the boys being "free" when they leave their Christian school at the end of the day. In this beginning part of the story, another point to notice the boy's description of his own home. "The former tenant of our house, a priest, had died in the back drawing-room. Air musty, from having been long enclosed, hung in all the rooms."(404) It seems as though at one point, even the boy had been a victim of his church's beliefs. Later, this same setting of the area where a priest died, is also the location of the boy meeting or dreaming about his lo! ve. Furthermore in describing the religious state of his neighbors and his own home, he uses very dark descriptions. There are "dark muddy lanes behind the houses"(404) and "dark dripping gardens"(404) where him and his friends played. These are very contradictory to connecting religion with light. When desc...