How is the introduction in "Araby" related to the theme, mood and the conflict of the story?

Certainly the introductory paragraph of this great story
is essential in establishing something of the mood in this story of innocence and
maturity. This is achieved mainly through the personification that is employed in
describing the house on the narrator's dead-end
street:

North
Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian
Brothers' School set the boys free. An uninhabited house of two stories stood at the
blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground. The other houses of the
street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown
imperturbable faces.

Note how
the diction employed in this paragraph, in particular the words "conscious," "gazed,"
and "imperturbable faces" combine to create a somewhat ominous and gloomy atmosphere as
the houses are described as faces looking out without expression. Note how this mood is
sustained in the following paragraphs through the use of such words as "sombre,"
"musty," "damp," "muddy," "dark" and feeble."

All of these
effects serve to create a somewhat restricted atmosphere in which the characters are
trapped in their gloomy and oppressive lives and routines. In the quote above we have
the example of the school "setting the children free." Thus we can understand the
attraction of the boy to the word "Araby" with all of its promise of mystery, gold and
exoticism, linked to his attraction to Mangan's sister.