Araby is one of the most well regarded works of fiction found in James Joyce's collection of short stories, Dubliners. It is a short story with many different views, but clearly a story of dream versus reality with hidden implications.
In 1882, James Joyce was born into a well-off Catholic family in Dublin, Ireland. He was the oldest of twelve siblings and as the years passed the family slowly began to slip into poverty. He attained a proper education at Jesuit- run schools where "he enjoyed writing essays parodying various literary styles, which won him several large awards" (http://wa.essortment.com/jamesjoycesa_rqjn.htm). After graduating from Royal University, Joyce left for Paris but returned home to Dublin after only a few months to care for his dying mother.
In June of 1904 he met Nora Barnacle, and by October they left together for Europe to escape a disagreement with his publisher in Dublin.
Bust of James Joyce in St. Stephen's Green, Dublin
James Joyce, one of the controversial omissions of...
The title page of the first edition of DublinersJoyce and Barnacle settled in Austria where Joyce wrote and taught English in attempt to make ends meet. He made two trips back to Ireland in 1909 and 1912 to arrange for the publication of Dubliners. During the twenties and the thirties, the Irishmen lived in Paris writing novels, short stories, poems and plays. In 1931, after years of living together, Nora and James finally married. In 1941 he had an operation on a Duodenal Ulcer and died unexpectedly a few days later in Austria at the age of fifty-nine. Literary critic Ian Scott- Kilvert described James Joyce's life by saying: " When he died in 1941 there was little responsible literary opinion in either Europe or America that failed to acknowledge him as one of the world's most significant writers of age" (41).
James Joyce was a novelist, short-story writer, poet and playwright. His first major work was Chamber...