Do you remember your first date? Our wedding night and first date are events in our lives that we usually don't tend to forget. They are pleasant memories of our first recollection of falling in love, or perhaps lust. It begins a teenager's journey into adulthood. Similarly in James Joyce Araby and E.B. White's Afternoon of an American Boy the boys are experiencing what all young men experience, the first crush. The stories are viewed through the eyes of an adult male who is reflecting on his childhood memories of the young inexperienced adolescent he once was. Both short stories share thematical traits but differ in the boys experiences all together.

The central essence of both short stories is to recount a very significant incident from the narrators past. Although they aren't as amusing as most of us might think. The "boy" in Araby and Elwyn White...