In James Joyce's, Dubliners, we get to catch a glimpse into the great world of Irish culture and heritage. Joyce explores many issues that confronted the Irish at the turn of the century. The constant struggle to keep money in the pocket; be a good Catholic, men and their excessive drinking, and the struggle of keeping the inner family bound together is what we see through the window painted by Joyce. His stories illustrate these issues and he was not a popular man for making them public and pointing out the many faults of Irish people of the time. Life was a difficult struggle for many of the people of Dublin and many of them had a hard time dealing with the disappointments of life.
             There are several reoccurring themes in Dubliners, but there are two that stand out in my mind particularly. In several of Joyce's stories, the characters deal must deal with disappointment and drunkenness. One of the first stories in the book takes a look into both of these scenarios. In Araby, a young boy develops a crush on a neighbor girl. One day, the young girl initiates a conversation with the boy. He tells her that he is going to the bazaar. The young girl is unable to attend due to a religious retreat. It is one of the first disappointments illustrated in the story. Since the young girl is unable to attend, the boy promises to bring her back something from the bazaar. After a long and sleepless night, the boy awakes and asks permission from his aunt and uncle to go to the bazaar. He is granted permission and waits for his uncle to return home that evening. As he waits, time dwindles down and his trip to the bazaar starts to look more and more hopeless. Finally the boy's uncle returns home in a discombobulated state of mind. Perhaps his uncle was out drinking, but he did forget about his nephew's trip to the bazaar. Disappointed in his uncle's forgetfulness, the boy still makes an attempt to get to the bazaar. When he...