an ode for araby

spoilers for Araby ahead?

Araby is a good story.

I believed this first since when I first read it in AP Literature. Let's yak away about it

So, what happens in Araby?

We're introduced to our protagonist. He idealizes his best friend's, Mangan's, sister, transfers the intensity of the idealization onto the promise of Araby, an exotic bazaar, and then finally sprawls into self-deprecation under the weight of shame & realization.

Current literature on this work of literature expresses the following shifts: the boy's devotion to Mangan's sister becomes devotion to the idea of Araby; this anticipation is then worn down by the unfortunate factors of life: delay, fatigue, and money.

I'd like to do the following here: (1) read the story closely, and (2) model it into an ODE system more formally.

To keep the model readable & easy to work with, I'll start with an autonomous ODE system.

Let:

- $D(t) \ge 0$ = desire for Mangan's sister

- $S(t) \ge 0$ = sacralization, i.e. the extent to which desire is rendered devotional, liturgical, or absolute

- $A(t) \ge 0$ = fixation, i.e. the displacement of desire onto the noun in question as a centerpiece of *something*

- $C(t) \ge 0$ = constraint i.e. delay through fatigue, lack of money, and other factors (?)

- $V(t) \ge 0$ = shame from vanity, exacerbated by the anticlimax

to be continued