What do Mangan's sister and Araby each represent for the narrator in "Araby"?

The narrator in James Joyce's "Araby" is a romantic, idealistic boy who is obsessed with the exotic. For the narrator, both Mangan's sister and the bazaar called Araby represent the exotic in some sense. For instance, the narrator has a considerable crush on Mangan's sister, and we get the sense that she is the first girl he's been attracted to. Like most boys who get their first crush, the narrator views Mangan's sister in idealistic...

The narrator in James Joyce's "Araby" is a romantic, idealistic boy who is obsessed with the exotic. For the narrator, both Mangan's sister and the bazaar called Araby represent the exotic in some sense. For instance, the narrator has a considerable crush on Mangan's sister, and we get the sense that she is the first girl he's been attracted to. Like most boys who get their first crush, the narrator views Mangan's sister in idealistic terms, and he immediately assumes that simply because she is new and different (exotic, in other words), that his simple crush is much more significant than it really is. Likewise, Araby is a bazaar that seems to evoke the Middle East, and for the boy such a location is unimaginably exotic and far away. Thus, his trip to Araby to buy a gift for Mangan's sister becomes more than a mere errand: it's a romantic adventure that gives him the chance to prove his undying devotion to his love. Of course, the exoticism of both Araby and Mangan's sister is deconstructed in the final scene, in which the boy understands his idealizations of both have been childish. Thus, much of the short story is about breaking down naive assumptions of an exotic "other," and this idea is represented by the narrator's relationship with both Mangan's sister and Araby.