In his short story “Araby”, James Joyce describes a boy's first awakening of 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 linguistic contrasts to foreshadow this disillusionment. In this passage the juxtaposition of romantic and realistic diction, details, and imagery foreshadows the story's theme that, in the final analysis, life ends in disappointment and disillusionment. The romantic language, details and imagery of the passage create an ecstatic and sensual tone. from the religious, chivalric, and emotional realms, Joyce blends words and details, the connotations of which convey the boy's romantic yet naive concept of love. The naïve narrator describes the object of his “confused adoration” (to whom he has not even spoken) in terms that strongly suggest religious worship. As a religious follower he carries with him the medal of a saint or other religious relic as constant protection and reminder, on his pilgrimages “to the places most hostile to romance”. the boy brings with him “his image” – a celestially, angelic figure backlit “by the light of the half-open door”. Like a guardian angel, “her name” (though it is never revealed in the story; he simply calls her “Mangan's sister”) inspires in him “strange prayers and praises.” The “prayers and praises” arise from his unbridled, youthful adoration for this enchanting older girl, who, for him, has become a holy presence worthy of this devotion and reverence. Such religious connotations give his love a perfection and fervor far beyond the level of a… medium of paper… and the gestures were like fingers running on strings. While this simile has both the romantic connotations of beauty and kindness and the spiritual associations of the angel's harp, it also metaphorically describes what the boy feels physically. Despite the attempt to idealize his emotions, he feels the adolescent stirrings of sexual desire. Her body is truly a tool on which the girl's sexual stimulation plays. By presenting the contrast between the boy's romantic illusions and the realistic truths of the streets, Joyce foreshadows the boy's eventual disillusionment. This foreshadowing prepares the reader for the epiphany of the story. Although the boy only discovers the truth after experiencing Araby's vulgarity, Joyce constructs this climactic revelation through her careful choice of words, details, and images..