Araby - Lack of Intuition Readers of "Araby" often focus on the final scene as the key to the story. They assume that the boy feels deep insight about himself when he looks "into the darkness." I believe, however, that the boy sees nothing and learns nothing, neither about himself nor about others. It is not self-reflexive; he is simply self-centered. The evidence to support this interpretation is the image of blindness and the narrator's ironic point of view. There may seem to be a deep insight at the end of the story only if we empathize with the boy and adopt his point of view. In other words, we must assume that the boy is telling his own story. But if the true narrator is the adult man looking back on his early adolescence, then it becomes possible to read the narrative as ironic and see the boy as confused and blind. The story opens and closes with images of blindness. The street is "blind" with an "uninhabited house... at the end". While spying on Mangan's sister from her home, Mangan intentionally limits what he is able to see by lowering the "curtain" until it is only an inch from the window frame. At the bazaar, in the final scene, "the light was out" and the upper part of the hall was "completely dark". The boy is left "staring into the darkness", seeing nothing but an internal torment burning his eyes. This pattern of imagery includes images of reading, and reading represents the boy's inability to understand what is before his eyes. When he tries to read at night, for example, "the image of the girl [comes] between him and the page," it effectively blinds him. In fact, he seems blind to everything except this “image” of the “brown-robed figure created by [his] imagination.” The girl's "brown-clad figure" is also associated with the houses of "blind" North Richmond Street, with their "unflappable brown faces". The houses stare at the boy, unaltered by his presence and his gaze. The most important face he searches for and cannot read belongs to Mangan's sister. Her description and interpretation of the few words she says to him can be seen as further evidence of her blindness. He only sees what he wants to see, the "image" he has in his mind.