This study will compare the young protagonists in two short stories, John Updike's "A & P" and James Joyce's "Araby." Specifically, the study will compare and contrast the ways in which the authors' styles and characterizations contribute to the themes of self-image and heroism as they are represented by the two young men. Basically, the young narrator in Joyce's "Araby" is a romantic who is in love with the idea of love (rather than with the flesh-and-blood object of his adoration) and sees himself as the hero of that romantic world. He is revealed as not a hero but a fool. On the other hand, Sammy, in Updike's "A & P", is a down-to-earth young man with no romantic pretensions about himself---but he turns out to be truly heroic in his defense of a girl he does not even know. The theme of both stories is that young people can be easily self-deceived, but life is such that the self-deception will be soon exposed, with inevitably disruptive results.
Joyce uses a romantic style to portray the character of the boy. From the first description of the girl Joyce paints her---through the eyes of the boy---as a romantic, dream-like object of longing and desire:
She was waiting for us, her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door. . . . Her dress swung as she moved her body and the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side. . . . My heart leaped. . . . Her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood (Joyce 2).
So powerful is the romantic connection of the boy to the girl that "Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance" (Joyce 2). Joyce consistently uses a poetic style to define the romantic consciousness of the boy: "Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. . . . A flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom" (Joyce 2-3).
Joyce's naming of the story (and the fair) could not be more romantic, calling up a...