A&P and Araby Youthful growing Pains

These stories; Araby written by James Joyce and A&P written by John Updike, draw attention to a number of the common problems which youths face when approaching adulthood. These two stories are of young men that are pictured to be hit with the unsettling understanding of the fantasies and the brutal reality of romance. They talk about a man who is currently in the development phase due to romance and love. Along the way, these men suffer emotional problems. A major similarity existing between both stories is the major characters are impractical and they both have weird expectations from women. This caused them to show women lots of affection which is not fully reciprocated and this causes them to be heartbroken and sad. They don’t enjoy any rewards from the love and affection they give to women but instead they face rejection severally and sometimes, they are unable to handle it.
The major cause of pain suffered by a male reaching adulthood is love and affection for a totally unreachable girl who unintentionally gets the young man into an intense emotional and sexual frenzy that he starts to mistake "sexual impulses for those of honor and chivalry” (Saldivar 215). This issue of self-deception is what both stories focus on. The young and developing man is traumatized emotionally as he has to "compensate for the emptiness and longing in the young boy's life" (Saldivar 210). Even though Joyce’s original work is markedly different from Updike’s rendition, both pieces are also closely related. Just like the Updike Story, James Joyce’s Araby highlights the suffering faced by humans due to love. In Araby, the narrator falls in love with Mangan’s (his friend) sister. He is an adolescent and thus his feelings of affection are painful, confusing and bedeviling.
“My eyes were often full of tears, (I could not tell why)… I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. but my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running on the wires.” (Joyce 2)
A similar situation is seen in A&P by Updike, here, youths go through pain as they attempt to impress girls. An example is Sammy who resigned from his job as a form of protest against the maltreatment of the girls, with the hope of impressing them. This is a perfect example of self-deceit which the two stories focus on where the young man is emotionally traumatized and has no choice but to move on after suffering rejection from the girls.
In both stories, the boys come to terms with the sad fact that girls do not desire them or their company. This causes a sort of self-awakening and it also demonstrates how misery can be depressing and can cause suffering. All the gifts which the young men offered their preferred girls were appreciated. Irrespective of their efforts, the young men suffer huge failure in winning the hearts of their loved ladies. Sammy understands that the action he took will have a lasting and unchangeable effect on his life.
When the youth are developing, they go through suffering due to differences in their personal characters and in their modes of interaction with their elders. In Araby, the narrator relates with his uncle, teacher and aunt differently. He has developed a sort of more rebellious character and an example is when he gets annoyed with his uncle and aunt when they refuse to pay proper attention to his requests. On the Araby market night, the narrator decides not to smile when his uncle was cracking jokes, a form of silent rebellion. He equally detects the drunkenness of his uncle when he returns later that night and this means he already understands some parts of the adult life and isn’t an innocent any longer. His different interaction with his school teacher equally points to the fact that he isn’t scared of letting authority figures down any longer. He sees that his master is becoming strict with him; nonetheless, he is still unable to focus on his studies (Gale 3).
A young man understands the futility and falseness of romantic, ideal love. It has equally been defined as a story on a young man’s increasing isolation from his religion, surroundings and even his family. Furthermore, it is seen as sort of autobiographical; a reflection of the author’s (James Joyce) sadness at love and religion. The stories lay emphasis on childhood problems and then proceed to highlight the challenges and new understanding that comes with adulthood. The Updike story, however, shows these hardships by describing how the girls suffer maltreatment just because of their dressing. To the girls, their dressing style isn’t important as they are not trying to impress, nevertheless, the society is often critical of them causing them embarrassment and despair.
When youths develop, they suffer pain as they experience several events on their way to adulthood. Some of these events are loss, rape, war, economic problems and love. In Araby, the narrator recently discovered his sexual orientation and is trying to create some distance between himself and his friends. He was equally becoming more rebellious. Reaching adulthood made him distance himself from his parents. He wasn’t enjoying satisfaction but nonetheless he was no longer innocent. In just one evening, he has gone from a gentle, innocent boy enjoying his last childhood days to a distressed young man faced with the reality that adulthood isn’t the achievement of the promise of childhood but rather its loss (Gale 3).
In conclusion, both stories prove that though it is inescapable that everyone will become young adults, it isn’t really something to be excited about but rather it is a form of tragedy as the new knowledge added is difficult and dark and not really worth the lost innocence. Pain from disappointment, societal maltreatment, rejection and abuse is very much present. Changing one’s character and becoming a rebel still doesn’t exempt one from suffering.



Work Cited
Gale, Cengage Learning. A Study Guide for Updike's A & P. Gale, Cengage Learning, 2015.
Joyce, James, et al. Araby. Triestina Carlo Moscheni, 1935.
Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: And, Dubliners. Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004.
Saldivar, Toni. "The art of John Updike's" A&P"." Studies in Short Fiction 34.2 (1997): 215.