Three Coming of Age Short Stories

Sammy, the teenager in Updike's story, quits his job as a grocery store clerk as a sign of support for three girls who are insulted and demeaned by his boss, and as a result he recognizes "how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter" (Updike 67). James, the boy in Gaines' story, accompanies his mother to the dentist, experiences a number of harsh realities about life, particularly about the prejudice and hardships faced by blacks in the South of the 1940s, and learns from his mother that "You not a bum. . . . You a man" (Gaines 386). Jackie, the boy in O'Connor's story, goes to his first confession and learns that the nightmare awaiting him according to his tormenting sister is more like a sweet, comic dream. We get the feeling from O'Connor's story that Jackie's sweet and playful nature indicate his being in some sort of state of grace, as his sister appears to recognize: "'Lord God,' she wailed bitterly, 'some people have all the luck! 'Tis no advantage to anybody trying to be good. I might just as well be a sinner like you'" (O'Connor 525).

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the three young female shoppers as Sammy does. The girls are wearing bathing suits, which the conservative manager frowns upon: "Girls, this isn't the beach. . . . We want you decently dressed when you come in here" (Updike 65-66). The girls protest mildly, embarrassed by this admonishment. Sammy takes the incident far more seriously, feeling that his boss has ruined what to that point had been a reverential experience of the girls' beauty and budding sexuality. His subsequent quitting is not undertaken with the most pure intentions. He clearly takes the action in part as a means of drawing the girls' attention to himself: The girls, and who'd blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say "I quit" to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they'll stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero. They keep right on going, . . . leaving me with Lengel and a kink in his eyebrow (Updike 66). But Sammy is committed to his decision, and follows through, walking out of the store, his life changed and the girls gone: ""It seems to me than once you begin a gesture it's fatal not to go through with it" (Updike 67). Of course, Sammy does not mean or believe that his quitting or not quitting will be literally fatal. What he believes is th
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Approximate Word count = 1789
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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