Araby

Reading Check

1. North Richmond Street (Paragraph 1)

2. That it “was not some Freemason affair” (Paragraph 12)

3. It changes from “amiability to sternness.” (Paragraph 12)

4. Because the narrator needs his uncle to give him the money (Paragraph 19)

Short Answer

1. As the narrator plays with his friends out on the street in the evenings, he sees his friend Mangan’s sister who occasionally comes outside the house to call her brother home. The narrator begins to have feelings for her, following her and thinking about her constantly without talking to her. (Paragraphs 3-4)

2. The narrator describes one evening when he goes into the room where the priest had died, and, in a realization that “[all his] senses seem[] to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that [he] [i]s about to slip from them, [he] presse[s] the palms of [his] hands together until they tremble[], murmuring: ‘O love! O love!’ many times.” During this time, the setting is rainy and dark, with “[s]ome distant lamp or lighted window gleam[ing] below [him].” (Paragraph 6)

3. Mangan’s sister finally speaks to the narrator, inquiring about whether or not he will attend the Araby bazaar. Since she is unable to go as she will be at a convent retreat, the narrator offers to bring her something from the bazaar.