Araby 阿拉比

Araby is a short story by James Joyce  in the anthology(文集) called Dubliners(1914).

作品中的「我」是一個天真無邪，正在長大的孩子，其實也是喬伊絲童年的經歷，他住在「里奇蒙北街」的死巷裏。處於青春期的他，對愛情開始有了朦朧的感覺，他喜歡上鄰居「曼庚的姊姊」，卻不知道如何「向她表白我那神魂顛倒的思慕之情」。

有一天女孩告訴他「阿拉比」集市是個好去處，但她又說，「她不能去，因為那個星期她的教會有一個靜修活動。」男孩渴望在阿拉比集市為「曼庚的姊姊」買件禮物。當星期六終於來到時，早先答應給他錢的叔叔卻遲遲還沒下班。隨後又因火車耽誤了時間。最後，他花了一先令，好不容易進了集市，此刻，大廳裏已是一片昏暗，大多數的攤位都收攤了，他走到一個攤子前，挑著看一些瓷器花瓶和一些燒有花朵圖案的茶具。一位小姐和兩位年輕人正在談天說笑，小姐問他要買什麼？他回答「沒有，謝謝你。」小姐又回去和那兩位年輕人聊天。

不久集市將要熄燈，大廳的上半部現在已經完全暗了下來。他覺得自己像一隻被虛榮心驅使與嘲弄的可憐蟲，他感到了深深的痛苦。

（"Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger."）

James Joyce

James Augustine^[1] Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist and poet. He contributed to themodernist avant-garde, and is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the twentieth century.

Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles, perhaps most prominent among these the stream of consciousness technique he utilized.

Dubliners(1914)

Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914.^[1] They form a naturalistic depiction of Irishmiddle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century.