Love and Disillusionment in Araby and A and P Essay

Love and Disillusionment in â€Å"Araby by James Joyce and â€Å"A and P by John Updike â€Å"Araby by James Joyce and â€Å"A and P by John Updike are both short stories in which the central characters are in love with women who don’t even know it. The Araby story started sad and ended sadder, however, the â€Å"A and P† story started happy and ended with a heroic act that went unnoticed. The main characters both experience new situations and truths of which they were not previously aware. Both stories will be examined with contemplation according to the type of initiation that took place, the similar and different features of both characters and various elements of the short stories. In the two stories, both characters were experiencing an†¦show more content†¦The boy in Araby is secretly in love with his best friend’s sister who lives in his We only know about the girl based on what the boy thinks of her â€Å"Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance†(Joyce 729) but not what the girl thinks of the boy. The boy is shy â€Å"watched her from our shadow peer up and down the street. Every morning I lay on the front parlous watching her door. The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash so that I could not be seen.† (Joyce 729). Throughout the story, we don’t know what type of person she is, but she had a very positive influence on him â€Å"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†¦the light from the lamp opposite out door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested here and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. At fell over one side of her and caught the white border of a petticoat, just visible as she stood at ease.†(Joyce 729). John Updike’s â€Å"A and P† takes place near the beach and it was summer time and the story took place on a sunny Thursday afternoon. â€Å"In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits.†(Updike 733). Sammy, the clerk at the store is nineteen-year-old young man. Three young women in their bathing suits entered the store. They caught his eye, and Sammy seems to have the gift of scrutinizing andShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of John Updike s Araby 1967 Words   |  8 Pagessources, James Joyce looms large.[1] With special affinity for Dubliners, Updike has, by common acknowledgment, written at least one short story that strongly resembles the acclaimed Araby, not only in plot and theme, but in incidental detail. That story, the 1960 You ll Never Know, Dear, How Much I Love You--like Araby--tells the tale of a poor, romantically infatuated young boy who, though obstructed by parental slowness, journeys with innocent urgency, coins in hand, to a seemingly magical carnival--onlyRead MoreAnalysis of The Novel Dubliners by James Joyce Essay1605 Words   |  7 Pagesin the following areas: the incomplete identities of the city and its inhabitants; tradition, and colonial influences; the fragmentary structure of the city; and briefly, how The Dead unifies the fragmented Dublin as Gabriel gazes out at the snow(p.160)2. Considering Dublins symbiotic relationship with its people, we can resolve Seamus Deanes paradoxical summation of the city as necessarily being: nowhere and everywhere, absence and presence3, as Dublin pervades its characters thoughts without