Comparative analysis and contrasting perspectives

UPDIKE VS. PETRY

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast two short stories -- John Updike's "A&P," with Ann Petry's "Like a Winding Sheet."

THE TWO STORIES

Updike's story centers on Sammy, the central character and the narrator. He is working in an A&P Store, probably sometime in the 1960s, as a cashier. He sees everything that goes on in the store during the day, and learns something about himself as the story progresses. Sammy is a typical 19-year-old when the story opens. He does not like his job, and he is flexing his muscles against the authority and inflexibility of the people who manage his store. He calls the customers "sheep," and is afraid he may become like them.

Three girls enter the store, and Sammy immediately notices them. They are only wearing bathing suits, and they practically parade around the store as they search for snacks to take with them to the beach. The manager tells them they have to leave, because their "shoulders must be covered." This infuriates Sammy, who sees it simply as rules without any real meaning. "That's policy for you. Policy is what the kingpins want. What the others want is juvenile delinquency." He tells the manager he quits, and this begins Sammy's journey into manhood. He has taken a stand for something he believes in, right or wrong.

Petry's story at first glance does not seem to have much in common with Updike's. The two main characters, Johnson and Mae, are two poor black people struggling to make a living sometime in the early 20th century. They are the opposite of Sammy, who appears to be middle-class, and bored with his work. They have to work simply to survive. They both work at low paying jobs in industrial plants.

As you dig deeper into the story, the common elements begin to form. Just like Sammy, Johnson feels oppressed by the authority figures where he works. In one passage Petry shows Johnson's frustration, and some of the anger that is building up inside him: "he pushed the cart out on the concrete floor, thinking that if this was his plant he'd make a lot of changes in it."

Petry likens the anger that is building up in Johnson to a "winding sheet." At the end, he beats Mae, and cannot stop himself. "The knowledge that he had struck her seeped through him slowly and he was appalled but he couldn't drag his hands away from her face."

The biggest contrast in these two stories is how the main characters deal with their anger and frustration. They are both dissatisfied, unhappy, and want to change. Sammy has the ability to quit his job. Johnson does not. He cannot survive without it, and this is part of his frustration with the "system." He is a poor black man who is tired of people calling him a "nigger," including Mae, and this finally sends him over the edge. She says, "You're nothing but an old hungry nigger trying to act tough and…." His anger and frustration have nowhere to go for release, so he beats his wife uncontrollably.