The readings "Araby" and "The Dead" are two stories from the story collection called The Dubliners written by James Joyce. The first story, "Araby", revolves around a boy's romantic fantasies and love, and ends up with the boy's sudden realization of the futility of his fantasies. Similar to the situation of the boy in "Araby", a young married literature teacher, Gabriel Conroy, suddenly realizes how empty his thoughts had been and in the end of "The Dead". Both of these characters experience a sudden moment of epiphany which in the end might change their points of view of life.

The first story, "Araby", starts with a brief description of the young boy's neighborhood and surroundings which are expounded as "being blind and quiet except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free" (Joyce 2236). The boy lives in a gloomy house where a priest had died. The drawing room is filled with musty air, the kitchen is littered with useless papers and the books are yellow. There is also a rusty bicycle pump in the wild garden behind the house. Besides these hoarse and shivering elements of the setting of the story

full of fantasies after he sees her. From there on he always thinks about the girl, and follows her every move. First experience of feeling the excitement of love seems so valuable and different to him; he cannot let it go. Whenever he sees or faces her, his heart starts to leap, and the intensity of enthusiasm of love empties his mind, so that he could never find the words to talk to her. He does not even know if he "would ever speak to her or not", and even if he could how he "could tell her of his confused adorations". The boy's obsession of the girl alienates him from reality, hence the girl adopts an image of a goddess in his mind, so that her name "sprang to his lips at moments in strange prayers and praises" as if he prays to the girl (Joyce 2237).

After losing a great deal of time, he leaves home. In addition to the prior delay at home, he endures an "intolerable" delay before the train departs. Despite all of these unfortunate delays, he still is excited and anxious about the fair. Though he imagines the fair as a very attractive event, no one else seems to be going to the fair except him at this time of the day. His mysterious journey starts with the departure of the train. After a short trip, he comes to the place where he had been dreaming about for a while.

Both the young boy's and Gabriel's lives would change after what they learned from the epiphanies they experienced. However after he, the boy, realized that his conversation with the girl was nothing special and did not mean anything as he made out,

The day of the fair cast finally comes, however from the start it does not turn out to be the day he waited for a long time then. A couple days ago, he asked his uncle to give him some money for the fair. However his uncle forgets to give him money and does not come home, even though the boy reminded him in the morning about the fair. In not returning home on time, the boy realizes that his uncle is more concerned with himself than he is for his nephew. At nine o'clock his uncle comes and gives him the money.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2198
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)