In Joyce's "Araby," the narrator tells of his epiphany in
the final sentence of the work:
Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a
creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anquish and
anger.
The speaker realizes
that he has been living under an illusion, that he has been blind (like the street he
lives on), that he's been "dark" (like the bazaar is now), that he's been thinking about
the so-called relationship he has with Mangan's sister far more than the relationship
deserves.
The speaker sees that the famous Araby bazaar is
nothing so grand, hears the trivial, silly conversation among the workers, is
disappointed in some way in the articles for sale, and realizes that he, too, has been
blind and dark and trivial, as well as self-important. In reality, Mangan's sister
probably barely even knows he exists. And she doesn't even have a name in the story.
The narrator gives up his studies, obsesses, suffers in his waiting, and then realizes
how trivial he's been.
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