Characters in American Fiction Two Terms Used

¶ … Characters in American Fiction

Two terms used that are to describe characters are static and dynamic, which mean rarely or never changing, and constantly changing, respectively. This paper provides an analysis of the characters of Sammy in the short story "A&P" by John Updike and Louise Mallard in the short story "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin to determine whether these characters are static or dynamic. Drawing on supportive quotations from the two short stories, a discussion concerning who the person is at the start and end of the story is followed by an analysis of whether constant changes were a good thing for the dynamic character. Finally, a summary of the research and important findings concerning these issues are provided in the conclusion.

Review and Analysis

"Sammy" in John Updike's "A&P"

This short story is set in the early 1960s in a small town somewhere north of Boston (Saldivar 215). In his youthful zeal to prove himself virtuous and worthy of admiration of respect, the story's protagonist, Sammy, a cashier at the local A&P, has impulsively quit his hard-to-come-by-job because of something his manager, Lengel, said to three barefoot, bathing suit-clad young girls in his check-out line ("Girls, this isn't the beach. "We want you decently dressed when you come in here"). Perhaps the straw that broke Sammy's back in this exchange was the fact that Lengel would not let the issue drop and allowed a crowd to gather to further humiliate his young customers.

The flood of thoughts that compelled Sammy to make this fateful decision was not fast enough, though, for Sammy to have his momentous sacrifice even noticed by the three girls who had completed their purchase and already left. In this regard, Updike writes: "The girls, and who'd blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say 'I quit' to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they'll stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero." Alas, despite Sammy's envisioned new status as a hero to females everywhere and especially the one "in the plaid green two-piece, a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her leg." Despite his attempt to make a loud enough display of his resignation for the benefit of the offended young girls, his efforts backfired and Sammy was left with a tough decision. According to Updike, the girls did not hear Sammy and kept "right on going, into the electric eye; the door flies open and they flicker across the lot to their car, Queenie and Plaid and Big Tall Goony-Goony (not that as raw material she was so bad), leaving me with Lengel and a kink in his eyebrow."

Because the American psyche is wracked with competitiveness, integrity, hard work and "following through" (after all, only a spineless weakling goes back on his word), Sammy was not even able to reverse his decision once he discovered it would not gain him anything and would in fact lose him everything even when he had a second chance at keeping his job (Salvidar 216). All of these actions point to a highly dynamic character that changed his life on the spur of the moment with Sammy suddenly finding himself in a state of further change as he searches for a new job and a new girlfriend. According to Saldivar, "Though the girls leave without recognizing their hero, and though his manager tries to dissuade him from disappointing his parents, Sammy feels 'that once you begin a gesture, it's fatal not to go through with it'" (216). The outcome of this unbridled dynamism was not good for Sammy because even though he did not see how he could have acted otherwise, he was convinced that "the world will be hard to me, hereafter."

Louise Mallard in Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour"

In this story, the protagonist begins as a static character mired in an ambivalent marriage. After learning of the purported death of her husband, Mrs. Mallard sinks into a miasma that causes her to absolutely dread and fear the imminent change that was coming in her life: "There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her . . ." The change, though, was not the fear of a life without her dear departed, but rather the liberation of herself from a marriage that was constraining and restricting. The exhilaration of this envisioned change was sufficient for her to succumb to her heart ailment upon learning that the reports of her husband's death had indeed been premature. Once again, dynamism was not a good thing for Mrs. Mallard.