Araby is a pretty dark short story. It starts with a street with a dead end, whose inhabitants seem to stare blankly out the windows. Even the part that describes the children playing on the streets has a gloomy feel to it, containing a sentence that uses the word "dark" three times. The ending mercilessly stamps on the readers' faint hopes that the story might turn out to be at least romantic. Why is Araby so dark, so pessimistic? Is it because the narrator of the story is a particularly grim child? Or does it show the reality of Dublin and even, the adult world in general? The narrator seems to have quite a negative view of the world of adults. He is first, frustrated with his uncle's attitude of not taking him seriously and breaking the promise to give him money. If it were an important meeting that his uncle had missed, would he still have been so careless and unapologetic? The boy does not think so. When getting to the bazaar late at night, he finds nothing b