A False Reality According to Webster’s Dictionary, the definition of the word “Infatuation” is, “to inspire with foolish or extravagant love or admiration” and “to cause to be foolish: deprive of sound judgment.” This uncontrollable and intense feeling of desire and affection can often engender rash decisions to be made by the infatuate. One’s imagination will run wild and his or her fantasies will interfere with daily life. A young boy in the short story, “Araby,” by James Joyce (61-66), is so incredibly immersed with infatuation for a young girl that his daily life becomes intoxicated with thoughts of her. Likewise, in the short story, “A&P,” by John Updike (18-23), a young boy named Sammy becomes infatuated with three girls, specifically …show more content…
the “lead” girl (Queenie), who are only wearing bathing suits to the “A&P” market.
His infatuation provokes the urge to quit his job in hopes of gaining the attention of the girls. Not only does he fail to acquire their attention, but he also realizes this, only to then quickly regret his decision. These two stories showcase how both characters become self-deluded and “blind” to reality when they are faced with infatuation and, as a result, they make ill-judged decisions. Both boys are young and therefore experience a confused image of the world around them. These views may be the reason for the intense infatuation that leads to decisions they wished they had not made. Sammy in the story, “A&P,” works the monotonous job of a cashier inside the A&P market where only run-of-the-mill events take place due to the small town in which it is located. He describes the customers as …show more content…
“sheep pushing their carts down the aisle,” by the way they all follow the protocols of society, making the three girls wearing bathing suits so erroneous that “you could set off dynamite in the A&P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists...But there was no doubt, this jiggled them” (Updike 19-20). Sammy felt stuck in this uneventful town of people who only play by the rules, which is why the three girls wearing bathing suits caused such a stir in Sammy’s mind. To Sammy, the attire of the girls represents a freedom that he envies in his life. His confused image of the world provides him an image of Queenie's life being charming and classy where “her father and the other men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow ties and the women were in sandals picking up herring snacks on toothpicks off a big glass plate and they were all holding drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them” (Updike 21). He must have created the idea that if someone is different from the norm of other people in town, then they probably live an upper class life. This shows how his confused image of the world around him brought about an intense infatuation with the girls. Similarly, the young boy in the short story, “Araby,” has a faulty outlook on the world around him by the way he describes the bazaar that he plans to attend in order to buy a gift for the young girl with whom he is infatuated. It is obvious how important going to the bazaar is for the young boy when he says, “The syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me” (Joyce 63). He begins to see the bazaar as the most important and vital event in his life because of his hopes that he will buy a gift there and win over the young girl in the end. He begins to think that everything else in life is insignificant compared to the bazaar when he says, “I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child’s play, ugly monotonous child’s play” (Joyce 63). He even envisions the name of the bazaar displayed on the large building as being a “magical name” (Joyce 65). These confused ideas of what's around him, and what is seemingly significant and insignificant to the young boy, leads to poor decision-making throughout his day. Both stories describe many instances of infatuation with the corresponding female characters, showing how easily infatuation can take over one's thoughts. In the short story, “A&P,” Sammy is simply impressed with the way Queenie walks when he says, “She didn’t look around, not this queen, she just walked straight on slowly, on those primadonna legs” and he shows many ways he is interested in her appearance such as thinking her shoulder bones were “more than pretty” (Updike 18-19). Many more examples of infatuation are shown by Sammy throughout the story, which gives one a better understanding of how he has become “blind” to most else around him. In the short story, “Araby,” the young boy watches his friend Mangan’s sister every morning and says, “I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood” (Joyce 62). Just from this example, one can understand how interested this young boy is with this young girl. Both boys do not realize how clouded their decisions are when they have such inclination taking over their minds. It is easy for someone to confuse infatuation with something more important, which is why it becomes easier to make regretful decisions when the intense liking of someone clouds one’s judgement. In the story, “A&P,” Sammy becomes so head-over-heels for Queenie and the other two girls that when they are persecuted for their attire, he decides that quitting his job would make him “their unsuspected hero,” all in hopes of gaining their attention (Updike 22). At the end of the story Sammy realizes that the girls are gone and did not witness his act of heroism and he winds up staring back into the store and describes how this rash decision makes him feel when he says, “my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter” (Updike 23). This shows how his infatuation lead to the regretful decision of quitting his job. Similarly, in the story, “Araby,” the young boy's infatuation takes over his daily life where “her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance,” making his need for buying her a gift from the bazaar to become the most important object in his life (Joyce 62).
He so badly wanted to buy her a gift in hopes of winning her over, that he can’t even concentrate in school. He explains that “her image came between me and the page I strove to read,” and he even stood watching her house for an hour “seeing nothing but the brown-clad figure” that was derived by his own imagination (Joyce 63-64). After his uncle comes home later than intended, the young boy unfortunately arrived too late to buy a gift for the girl at the bazaar. “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger,” this quote shows how he is unhappy with the infatuated thoughts that took over him for many days (Joyce
66). The themes of infatuation and a “blindness” to reality, which caused regretful decisions, is very prominent in both short stories. Sammy views his town as an uneventful and monotonous, therefore he is so compelled seeing the girls wearing bathing suits because it is outside his everyday norm. This causes him to make a hasty decision of quitting his job in hopes of scoring with one of the girls, but instead he is left with no girls and no job. In comparison, the young boy from “Araby,” views buying a gift at the bazaar as the only meaningful task in his life. This eats away at his thoughts while he is working in school or laying in bed for many days, only to then arrive too late to the bazaar to buy a gift. He finally realizes that he will not get the girl and therefore his past days have been wasted on meaningless thoughts. It is easy for someone to confuse infatuation with love and make decisions that they would probably not have made in their right minds. Both short stories are great examples of how infatuation can affect one’s judgment.
In “A&P”Sammy demonstrates the ability in both watching others and gathering bits of knowledge from those perceptions, however the young ladies propose to him the genuine riddle of different personalities. At the point when a client censures Sammy for an oversight, Sammy portrays the lady as a witch straight out of Salem and considers, "I know it made her day to outing me up." For Sammy, the clients at the “A&P” are very straightforward. The same holds valid for the administrator, who Sammy accepts he has completely made sense of. At the point when the young ladies enter the store, on the other hand, Sammy ponders what on earth they're considering. Despite the fact that Sammy attempts to comprehend the young ladies, particularly Queenie, and accepts that he is fruitful, his certainty is undermined by his activities toward the end of the story. His excellent motion of sensitivity for the young ladies his stopping goes unnoticed, and his inspirations are tangled and confounded. He is left with a feeling that, for all his capacity to watch and comprehend others, he should now turn his curious eye on
Sammy is a 19-year-old boy conveying a cocky but cute male attitude. He describes three girls entering the A & P, setting the tone of the story. "In walk these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. There was this chunky one, with the two piece-it was bright green and the seams on the bra were still sharp and her belly was still pretty pale...there was this one, with one of those chubby berry-faces, the lips all bunched together under her nose, this one, and a tall one, with black hair that hadn't quite frizzed righ...
Throughout “A&P” and “Gryphon” the two characters found themselves facing a challenge that they had never had to face before. Reading both of the stories has shown that although different adversities were represented in the books they both had challenges and reactions that were similar to each other as well as very different. Sammy’s was about a store called “A&P” where the manager confronted three girls in bathing suits and Sammy had to stand up for them. Tommy’s was about a unique substitute teacher who he quite enjoyed and his journey with her, and his defending her to the other kids when one of the children gets her fired. Together and separately these two dynamic characters make up these unique stories that ensnared their reader with their thoughts, adversity and heroic actions throughout the story.
Sammy, the protagonist in John Updike’s “A&P,” is a dynamic character because he reveals himself as an immature, teenage boy at the beginning of the story and changes into a mature man at the end. The way Sammy describes his place of work, the customers in the store, and his ultimate choice in the end, prove his change from an immature boy to a chivalrous man. In the beginning, he is unhappy in his place of work, rude in his description of the customers and objectification of the three girls, all of which prove his immaturity. His heroic lifestyle change in the end shows how his change of heart and attitude transform him into mature young man.
In "A&P" Sammy changes from an immature teenager to a person who takes a stand for what he believes is wrong which is reflected in Sammy's words and actions. This paper is composed of three paragraphs. The first paragraph deals with the immature Sammy, the second concentrates on Sammy's beginning his maturing process, and the last focuses on his decision to take a stand no matter what the consequences are.
Sammy tells us he is nineteen years old. He is a check-out clerk in the local A&P, where the boss, Lengel, is a friend of Sammy's parents. Sammy does not seem to like his job very much. He calls one of his customers a "witch" and says the other customers are "houseslaves" and "sheep." He himself comes from a middle-class family. When they have a party, he says, they serve "lemonade and if it's a real racy affair Schlitz in tall glasses with 'They'll Do It Every Time' cartoons stencilled on" (15). In addition, Sammy is sexist. He gives long, loving descriptions of the girls who cause all the trouble, and he thinks at first that girls may not even have minds, asking, "do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?" (13) However, he does change as the plot goes on.
The transition from childhood to adulthood is not only a physical challenge but, psychological and socially exhausting. John Updike who wrote “A & P” recognized this and used it characterize the main character. The protagonist Sammy was developed around the concept of the journey into adulthood. Sammy is a nineteen years old boy who works at the A&P grocery store in a small New England town. It is not until three young girls walk into the store in just their bathing suits that Sammy is faced with the realization that he undoubtedly has to face the harsh truth of growing up.
"A & P" is told from Sammy's point of view. Sammy presents himself as a nonchalant and flippant young man. He appears to be somewhat contemptuous of the older people shopping in the store. However, near the end of the story, we see that he does take responsibility for his conscience-driven behavior and decision, revealing his passage out of adolescence into adulthood through the courage of his convictions.
Two Works Cited In John Updike’s "A & P," Sammy is accused of quitting his job for childlike, immature reasons. Nathan Hatcher states, "In reality, Sammy quit his job not on a matter of ideals, but rather as a means of showing off and trying to impress the girls, specially Queenie" (37), but Sammy’s motive runs much deeper than that. He was searching for a sense of personal gain and satisfaction. By taking sides with the girls, he momentarily rises in class to meet their standards and the standards of the upper-class.
People often take their place in society for granted. They accept that position into which they are born, grow up in it, and pass that position on to their children. This cycle continues until someone is born who has enough vision to step out of his circle and investigate other ways of life in which he might thrive. One such person is embodied in the character of Sammy in A&P, by John Updike. Sammy is the narrator of the story and describes an incident in the store where he encounters a conflict between the members of two completely different worlds the world that he was born into and the world of a girl that captures his mind. Through his thoughts, attitudes, and actions, Sammy shows that he is caught between the two worlds of his customers at the A&P.
This story represents a coming-of-age for Sammy. Though it takes place over the period of a few minutes, it represents a much larger process of maturation. From the time the girls enter the grocery store, to the moment they leave, you can see changes in Sammy. At first, he sees only the physicality of the girls: how they look and what they are wearing, seem to be his only observations. As the story progresses, he notices the interactions between the girls, and he even determines the hierarchy of the small dynamic. He observes their actions and how they affect the other patrons of the business. Rather, how the other people view the girl's actions. His thought process is maturing and he starts to see things as an adult might see them.
In this essay I will discuss the short stories A&P by John Updike and Araby by James Joyce which share several similarities as well as distinct differences between the themes and the main characters. I will compare or contrast two or more significant literary elements from each of the stories and discuss how those elements contribute to each story’s theme.
This is not just a story about a nineteen-year-old guy trying to impress a group of girls by quitting his job, but it is also a story describing in detail the day this nineteen-year-old realizes that sometimes, in
The story begins as if it is any mundane workday at the A&P. Sammy is a typical teen, making sarcastic comparisons of the customers in the grocery store. He calls one of his customers a "witch" and says the other customers are "house slaves" and "sheep." Sammy obviously dislikes the job, but finds ways of passing the day. However, from the moment the three girls enter the A&P to their exit from the store, you can see dramatic changes in Sammy. Sammy lusts for the young girls, and nicknames the most attractive to him as “Queenie”. The young girls dressed in bathing suits fascinate him, and although he is staring at them excessively, he negatively comments on the others for doing the same. As the girls walk past the older employee, McMahon, Sammy notices how he ogled the girls and pats his mouth. Sammy appears disgusted by his gesture and begins to sympathize for the girls. “Poor kids, I began to feel sorry for them, they couldn’t help it" (Upd...
The clients of Sammy’s workplace are described as having “Six children”(Updike 645) with “Veracious vein mapping their legs”(Updike 645) and ”haven 't seen the ocean in twenty years”(Updike 645). Through the details Sammy provides about the clients explains that Sammy is starved from the sight of a girl his age, and upon the first sight of a girl nearing his age, he is instantly attracted to her. The three girls in the store are Sammy’s rescue from the small tiresome town. The final point that proves Sammy’s heroic action are because of his lust for the girls is the theme of the whole short