Both of the selected stories center around two young men who are experiencing crushes. In each story, they are coming to grips with the consequences they beget by trying to woo the girl they are attracted to. The similarities of the stories “A&P” and “Araby” are offset by the time period in which they are written, and this changes the process that each character goes through when they are chasing their love. The courtship process, or lack thereof, shows that each character was willing to sacrifice something for love. Overall, while each character has a similar motive in trying to court their crush, the way they go about doing that is very different, especially considering the time period and setting of each story.
In “A&P,” the story begins with the main character being struck by the sight of three girls in bathing suits (482). Almost immediately, it becomes pretty obvious that the protagonist is most likely an older teenager, and later, it is confirmed that he is eighteen, almost nineteen (484). His thought process, …show more content…
In both stories, each character realizes that the world is a very cold, bitter place which attempts to strike down self-understanding at every point. The setting causes each character to change past that, however. In “A&P”, the role that the main character has in working at the supermarket puts him into a role where he is under authority and breaks out by quitting later. “Araby” posits the main character as being under the scrutiny of society and due to that, he can only acknowledge his predicament, and nothing more. Outside of this, the age of the characters is the greatest gap where “A&P” makes the character a young adult, and “Araby” makes the character an adolescent. This is an important distinction because it means that each character is along a different stage in
In “A&P,” the story begins with the main character being struck by the sight of three girls in bathing suits (482). Almost immediately, it becomes pretty obvious that the protagonist is most likely an older teenager, and later, it is confirmed that he is eighteen, almost nineteen (484). His thought process, …show more content…
In both stories, each character realizes that the world is a very cold, bitter place which attempts to strike down self-understanding at every point. The setting causes each character to change past that, however. In “A&P”, the role that the main character has in working at the supermarket puts him into a role where he is under authority and breaks out by quitting later. “Araby” posits the main character as being under the scrutiny of society and due to that, he can only acknowledge his predicament, and nothing more. Outside of this, the age of the characters is the greatest gap where “A&P” makes the character a young adult, and “Araby” makes the character an adolescent. This is an important distinction because it means that each character is along a different stage in