Exile and Illusions In "Araby" James Joyce portrays his childhood as a dark, hopeless and poverty stricken one. Which would lead one to believe that this was how Joyce himself grew up, which is somewhat true. In fact Joyce was born into a fairly prosperous family of Irish merchants, although like all Irish Catholics of the time, "the Joyces inherited a tradition of legal and cultural repression."(Bloom) As time wore on the Anglo-Irish aristocracy took its toll on his family's wealth taking away all of his fathers land as well as his career. This slide in social standing seemed to have dis