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 discouraged Joyce's creativity, as symbolized in his short story "Araby".