“Araby” first appeared in James Joyce’s 1914 short story collection, Dubliners. The story follows the narrator, an unnamed young boy, around turn-of-the-century Dublin. The boy is deeply infatuated with a neighbor girl, and he resolves to go to the market at Araby to find a gift for her. Joyce uses a rich array of metaphors and personifications to convey the narrator’s evolving experiences of delight, desire, and disenchantment.

Skills: analysis, drawing inferences from text, close reading, identifying the relationship between words

About This Document

The Owl Eyes Analyzing Metaphor activity gives students an opportunity to practice examining and analyzing metaphors. Students will engage with specific selections of the text and work collaboratively to identify the vehicle, tenor, and implications of each metaphor. The main components include the following:

• A brief introduction to the text
• A detailed handout on metaphor types
• A step-by-step guide to activity procedure
• A detailed answer key for teachers

In completing this worksheet, students will learn to classify and analyze different kinds of metaphors in order to develop close reading skills and draw deeper inferences from the text.