Comparing Updike's A&P and Joyce's Araby Essay

John Updike's "A & P" and James Joyce's "Araby" are very similar. The theme of the two stories is about a young man who is interested in figuring out the difference between reality and the fantasies of romance that play in his head and of the mistaken thoughts each has about their world, the girls, and themselves. One of the main similarities between the two stories is the fact that the main character has built up unrealistic expectations of women. Both characters have focused upon one girl which they place all their affection. Both Sammy and the boy suffer rejection in the end. Both stories also dive into the unstable mind of a young man who is faced with one of life's most difficult lessons. Their

John Updike's “A & P” and James Joyce's “Araby” are very similar. The theme of the two stories is about a young man who is interested in figuring out the difference between reality and the fantasies of romance that play in his head and of the mistaken thoughts each has about their world, the girls, and themselves. One of the main similarities between the two stories is the fact that the main character has built up unrealistic expectations of women. Both characters have focused upon one girl in which they place all their affection. Both Sammy and the boy suffer rejection in the end. Both stories also dive into the unstable mind of a young man who is faced with one of life's most difficult lessons. The lesson learned is that things are not

John Updike’s A&P and James Joyce’s Araby are very similar yet very different in many ways. Each short story has a normal kid with an obsession over a girl. The big difference between Sammy in A&P and Jimmy in Araby is just that they were raised differently and have different values. The way Jimmy talks about his fantasy girl is on a more religious level while Sammy in other words is kind of impolite about how he describes the three girls that walk into the market. From the narrator’s point of view in each story to the use of imagery and the main characters motivation, each story has multiple points of comparison to compare and contrast.

Joyce’s “Araby” and Bambara’s “Lesson” pose surprising similarities to each other. Despite the narrators’ strikingly clear differences, such as time period, ethnicity, social class, and gender the characters have important similarities. Both narrators are at crucial developmental stages in their lives, are faced with severe adversities, and have a point of clarity that affects their future.

I have chosen to do my comparative essay on "Araby" by James Joyce and "A&P" by John Updike. In U pdike's "A&P" and Joyce's "Araby", each focuses on the initiation of a young man to the trials and tribulations of life as well as the distinctions which exist between reality and fantasy.

Although “A&P” by John Updike and “Araby” by James Joyce both describe a male’s infatuation with a female, the boys actually have appreciably different levels of infatuation with their girls. In “Araby”, James Joyce writes story about a young man with a deep level of obsession for Mangan’s sister and that obsession driven by his need to garner her attention due to the fact that he had not really spoken to her but feels as if he is truly in love with her; but in “A&P”, Sammy’s driven by a lust and not love towards Queenie. Although they both share failed quests they become fully aware that it was just an infatuation on their part and in the end ad they have nothing to show for their futile attempts to get the girls attention.

In Walter Wells critical essay, ”John Updike's 'A&P': A Return Visit to Araby, Wells compares the story Araby and A&P. Wells entire argument is that John Updike, author of A&P ,tends to appropriate other authors , primarily James Joyce, author of Araby, when writing his own literature. Updike’s story has similarities to Joyce’s stories that Wells believe are entirely too similar to be just a coincidence or merely a similar theme.

Upon first glance, the differences between James Joyce “Araby” and Countee Cullen “Incident” seem very clear. Joyce wrote a short story with a gloomy and depressing tone. The time and setting of short story “Araby” is in Dublin, Ireland during the 19th century. Cullen wrote a poem with a jaunty and lighthearted tone for the most part. Cullen “Incident” has a setting and time in Baltimore, Maryland during the 1920s. However, they both ironically wrote using the same point of view and theme, the loss of innocence. Who knew two very different authors from two different ways of life and writing styles could essentially write about the same topic.

James Joyce’s short story “Araby”, James McMichael’s “The Small Pretty Woman” and David James Duncan’s novel The Brothers K are three different types of genres, but relate closely to each other in many ways. A common theme that fits to all three of these pieces of literature is romance. In “Araby,” first person is a young boy who is completely infatuated with his friend’s sister. “The Small Pretty Woman” places us at a bus stop with a young boy and this girl he finds memorizing.

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--only to find there, behind its facades,

I didn't know the tale Araby by James Joyce (n.d.), and I have to say that I really liked reading this tale, especially for what it seems to hide behind the surface. As you know, the tale is about a boy who is in love with the sister of a friend, and who misses his chance to establish a relationship with her. This could seem a really simple plot, but both the boy and the girl in this story appear to represent more than two simple teens, and the tale itself looks like more than an easy writing about love and feelings. There are several clues which point in this direction. One for all, the protagonists are never named, and this is obviously intentional. It is clear that the author doesn't want us to focus our attention on the characters, but on

Written in first person from the perspective of a young boy, “Araby” doesn’t have quite the impact that it’s counterpart, “Eveline” has. “Eveline” however, is written from a third person perspective from an older protagonist that deal with issue that are a bit more serious. In “Eveline” the protagonist is afraid to run away from the past. Joyce expresses this well through his final two sentences of the story “She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition.” This excerpt expresses the protagonists’ feelings when she is committed to not getting on the boat. This scene exemplifies a moment in which the protagonist seems to be in a slight shock as if the world around her is standing still. In “Eveline” the protagonist chooses to live with her pleasant memories of her old family she grew up with instead of unbounding herself from her currently abusive father, and running away to start a family of her

Both stories expressed, a boy to a man concept. The narrators in both short stories were both young men who needed to mature. In Araby, by James Joyce the narrator responded to a new situation by actually putting himself in the situation first. What I like about the story is that the young boy had hopes and dreams about things he desired to have or accomplish. The young boy was delusional about his surroundings, he thought so deeply about the things he assumed were happening that it became reality for him.

When comparing the views of both James Joyce and John Updike on maturation from adolescence to adulthood it will be important to continually compare two of their similar works in Joyce’s “Araby” and Updike’s “A&P”. James Joyce and John Updike follow similar views with the latter using Joyce as a foundation and following in similar footsteps; both authors follow a process of maturation based on the allure of love, while doing it at different stages of each of the protagonists’ lives resulting in similar views with different stages. First, both authors use the characters telling their own story in first person narration to express the protagonist’s inner thoughts and level of maturity. Second, again both Joyce and Updike use several literary metaphor’s to express the sexual and provocative intention of the main characters. Lastly, Joyce and Updike use different age, maturity and settings in their stories to define their rate of maturation and the results of the story.

Therefore, a theme in both stories is interpretation; not only for the reader but the narrator’s interpretation of their love-intrests’ feelings. In “Araby” readers are meant to interpret moments such as when the narrator is describing his neighborhood, “the other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces” (14 & 17).