A & P Vs. The 12-Year-Old Man

While reading short stories, narrators provide insight and point of view to the reader. Specifically, I think Sammy the narrator from “A&P” and the 12-year-old boy narrator in “The Secret Lion” have good amount about each other to compare to one another. In “A&P” the narrator is Sammy who is a 19-year-old boy who is a cashier at a local supermarket. While the 12-year-old boy who is the narrator in “The Secret Lion” is just a middle schooler who is getting caught up in all the big changes that occur at that age. While the characters differ in age, you can still relate by how they act towards their current situations. First I would like to analyze Sammy, the 19-year-old boy who works at the supermarket. From what we have read in the story and …show more content…
They both seem to battle with loss of innocence and coming of age. While the 12-year-old narrator from “The Secret Lion” is at the age where everything changes drastically and there’s nothing you can do about, he slowly begins to understand what’s happening. He has a valid excuse for battling with the loss of innocence because he’s at the age border where one side is still a kid while the other is now a young adult. While Sammy, the 19-year-old boy who is a cashier at the convenience store struggles with a similar issue. He, for no reason at all, sees the adult figure as a threat and an enemy to him. When he is talking to Stokesie he is mocking him about how he wants to be manager and is slightly jealous that he has goals and aspirations for his future. Along with the way he talks to Stokesie, he also shows his immaturity with Lengel as well. When he tells Lengel he quits just to try to get attention from the girls shows how he is very childish and makes irrational choices in the spur of the moment. Both narrators struggle dealing with change in their lives, but in the end they both need to mature more, become more responsible, and leave their childhood