An Analysis of the Influence of Religion in James Joyce’s “Araby”

Abstract

James Joyce’s “Araby” is a short story deeply embedded in the religious context of early 20th-century Ireland. Based on close textual analysis, this paper aims to analyse how Catholic imagery and language shape the narrator’s perception of love and reality. Using the full text as raw data, a qualitative approach is adopted to interpret religious symbols and allusions in the story. The results show that the narrator internalizes religious vocabulary and combines his romantic feelings with the veneration of the Virgin Mary, finally considering his quest as a failed pilgrimage. Religious imagery does not merely decorate the text. It confines the boy psychologically. His disillusionment at the bazaar thus becomes Joyce’s critique of Catholicism as a primary cause of Ireland’s spiritual paralysis, revealing how religion distorts adolescent emotion and deepens Dublin’s social paralysis.