Joyces Araby versus Updikes A & P Essay -- James Joyce John Updike

Joyces Araby and Updikes A & P A Culture contrasted to RomanceAraby by James Joyce and A & P by prank Updike are two stories which, in spite of their many differences, have overmuch in common. In both of these initiation stories, the friends move from one level of life to another and encounter disillusionment along the way. Looking hazard upon his boyhood in Irish Catholic Dublin in the early 1900s, the cashier of Arabygives an account of his first failed love. Captivated by Mangans older sister, the boy promises to claim her a gift from a bazaar that give ways the mystical name of Araby. Sammy, a nineteen-year-old cashier at the local A & P in an anonymous coastal town north of Boston, narrates A & P. Like Joyces boy, Sammy also attempts to break through the attention of a beautiful girl by making a chivalric gesture. In both cases, romance gives way to reality, and conflict occurs when the protagonist finds himself in discord with the values of the society in which he l ives. Joyces Araby and Updikes A & P are initiation stories in which the adolescent protagonist comes into conflict with his culture.Both protagonists live in restrictive cultures. The narrator of Araby portrays the Dublin that he grew up in as grim and oppressed by Catholicism. He begins his drool with a description of North Richmond Street, where the somber houses wear brown imperturbable faces and seem conscious of the decent lives within them (Joyce 728). In this description, Joyce links decency and a stifled life together. Filled with cold renounce gloomy rooms, the house where the boy resides reminds the reader of a tomb (729). A priest died in the back drawing room, and air, musty from having been long enclosed, is associated with books... ...his crushed leather and illusions? Chivalry has failed, both for Joyces boy and for Sammy. Their efforts seem wasted, for their gallant gestures go unseen. However, Sammys story leaves the reader hopeful. His fate has not yet been de cided. Sammy loses his job but gains the human action of unsuspected hero (737). He claims his right to be an individual in a puritanical, conservative, and uncompromising culture. In Joyces Araby and Updikes A & P, two boys replace their ideas of valour with modern-life realism and inch their way closer to manhood.Works CitedJoyce, James. Araby. Making writings Matter An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Eds. John Clifford and John Schilb. Boston Bedford, 1999. 728-32.Updike, John. A & P. Making lit Matter An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Eds. John Clifford and John Schilb. Boston Bedford, 1999. 733-37.