Comparison of Protagonists in 2 Stories

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 b

sees the world through a more blunt, sarcastic veil. He seems to have none of the romantic notions which obsess Joyce's protagonist, and certainly no idea about being a hero to any girl. This attitude is expressed through Updike's down-to-earth style as Sammy observes the girl in the bathing suit: You never know for sure how girls' minds work (do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?) but you got the idea she had talked the other two into coming in here with her, and now she was showing them how to do it, walk slow and hold yourself straight (Updike 1). Sammy jokes with his fellow male employee in the store about the sexiness of the lead girl. Sammy's appreciation is not romantic, but neither is it lewd. The way she wears her bathing suit top is "more than pretty" (Updike 2) and the way she pulls the money out of that top "was so cute" (Updike 3). He is susceptible to her "flat and dumb yet kind of tony" voice: "All of a sudden I slid right down her voice into her living room" (Updike 3). The manager of the store embarrasses the girls by calling them indecently dressed. Sammy, in response, quits. It is a romantic sort of protest, because it accomplishes no change---except in Samm