James Joyce with “Araby” and Timmy O'Brien with “The Things They Carried” both demonstrated similar character traits of narrators. The main characters in these stories both have a deep crush on someone. However, "Araby" and "The Things They Carried" are set in very different locations from each other. “Araby” has the main setting in a neighborhood while “The Things They Carried” was at war in Vietnam. The stories take place in different locations from each other, but both authors had the same idea when writing their ideas about the characters' personality traits. The narrators of the two stories, "Araby" and "The Things They Carried" both present their protagonist feeling adoration towards a woman. They are very open-minded characters with strong personalities. James Joyce had described Magnan's sister as having a strong effect on his emotions. “I didn't know whether or not I would ever talk to her or, if I did talk to her, how I could tell her about my confused adoration” (Joyce 318). These main characters share similar romantic dreams that they both have about the girl they dream deeply about. Joyce and O'Brien both describe how each character deals with challenges. O'Brien the soldier and Joyce from “the suburbs” are both young men with the challenge of becoming manly while trying to grow intellectually. Towards the end of the stories O'Brien and Joyce have both destroyed dreams that they must overcome emotionally. The narrators have a fantasy for a girl who is not physically there to love them. Joyce has no experience so she thinks of Magnan's sister as a "goddess". “The boy finally glimpses the unadorned reality; he no longer deludes himself with his usual romanticism. For the moment, in the... middle of the paper... the long setting in which it took place. "Araby" is just set in a small town neighborhood and Joyce didn't have much going on around her other than her mind and her eyes always following this girl. Works Cited Joyce, James. "Arab" literature and its writers. Np: np, nd 1-1736. Print.Obrien, Timmy. The literature "The things they carried" and its writers. Np: np, nd 1-1736. Print.Smith, Jack. "The things it carries with it: For Tim O'Brien, the Vietnam War has remained a crucible in his fiction, but the power of imagination and memory, and 'our elusive inner worlds,' also loom large." Writer 123.7 (2010): 16. Biographical Reference Center. Network. March 1, 2014. Pietra, Harry. "Araby" and the writings of James Joyce. Np: np, nd EBSCO. Net. .