In his short story “Araby”, James Joyce describes a young boy's first impulse to love and his first encounter with the disappointment that love and life in general can cause. Throughout the story, Joyce prepares the reader for the boy's disillusionment at the end of the story. The fifth paragraph, for example, uses strong language contrasts to foreshadow this disillusionment. In this passage, the juxtaposition of romantic and realistic diction, details, and imagery foreshadows the story's theme that, ultimately, life ends in disappointment and disillusionment. The passage's romantic language, details, and imagery create a ravishing, sensual tone. Coming from the religious, chivalrous and emotional realms, Joyce mixes words and details whose connotations convey the boy's romantic but naive concept of love. The naive narrator describes the object of his “confused adoration” (to whom he has not even spoken) in terms strongly suggestive of a religious cult. As a religious adherent, he wears a saint's medal or other religious relic as a constant protection and reminder, during his pilgrimages "to places most hostile to romance." the boy carries with him “his image” – a celestial and angelic figure backlit “by the light of the half-open door”. Like a guardian angel, “her name” (although it is never revealed in the story; he simply calls her “Mangan’s sister”) inspires “strange prayers and praises” in him. The “prayers and praises” arise from his unbridled and youthful adoration for this charming eldest daughter, who, to him, has become a holy presence worthy of this devotion and respect. Such religious connotations give his love a perfection and fervor far beyond the level of a m...... middle of paper ... and the gestures were like fingers running on wires. Although this simile has both the romantic connotations of beauty and gentleness and the spiritual associations of the angel's harp, it also metaphorically describes what the boy feels physically. Despite his attempt to idealize his emotions, he feels the adolescent stirrings of sexual desire. Her body is truly an instrument on which the young girl's sexual stimulation plays. By presenting the contrast between the boy's romantic illusions and the realistic truths of the street, Joyce foreshadows the boy's eventual disillusionment. This foreshadowing prepares the reader for the story's epiphany. Although the boy only learns the truth after experiencing Araby's ridicule, Joyce constructs this climactic revelation through his careful choices of words, details, and images..