Rough Draft #1

Michelle LaRosa

ENG 195A

Essay #1

            The idea of women as strong symbolic figures shows up in a great deal of literature. From Greek mythology to modern day literature this has been a recurring theme in many works. Two that have really stuck out to me have been “A&P” by John Updike and “Araby” by James Joyce. Both of these stories show women as symbolic figures but in very different ways. While one focuses on transcendence and religious symbolism, the other focuses on the pursuit of power. I found it interesting reading these two texts and seeing how what different symbolisms women hold for different people.

            One passage I found interesting from “Araby” was when the narrator describes Mangan’s sister as a “figure” and how she was “defined by the light from the half opened door”. Also in this paragraph the setting was described as a “silent street” with “dark muddy lanes”. James Joyce definitely sets up a very dreary and dismal setting, which is then perforated by the image of Mangan’s sister, who is surrounded by light and is depicted as almost angelic. Describing her as "figure" instead of perhaps a body or a person says something about the narrator, because it shows that he sees her as someone more than a person he wants to get to know, but a symbol of something bigger. I think that by portraying her as higher up on the doorstep, having an authoritative voice with her brother, and being bathed in light sort of symbolizes the narrator’s wish to transcend everything that is dull around him. I see the narrator as someone who wants to be above everything that he lives in his daily life such as his lack of parents, his apathy towards school, and his overall unappealing landscape. Mangan’s sister is a symbol of this transcendence, which is why he keeps her in his mind all the time and makes excuses to see her, which is shown in the line “I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes”. He considers everything in his daily life the foe, which he battles by instead focusing on the girl, or rather the “chalice”. This dream of transcendence is also why he focuses all of his energy on going to the bazaar to bring back something for Mangan’s sister, because it is yet another excuse to not focus on things like school and be in a different place of mind. It is only in the end when he realizes all of his attempts at transcendence were in vain, when he says “gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.”

            The idea of religion is a very prevalent theme in “Araby” and it holds a lot of meaning to the narrator. A chalice is traditionally referred to in religious aspects, and has been used in the bible since the 1300s. This idea of religion also pops up multiple times throughout the text of “Araby”. Another significant religious aspect of the story is the fact that a priest died in the narrator’s home. Religion is the ultimate form of transcendence because those who are believers believe that there is something beyond the nature world entirely, and they look to this higher force to guide them. It would make sense that this is included in the story “Araby” because it’s this transcendence from the natural world that is exactly what the narrator is looking for. It would also make sense that he would refer to Mangan’s sister as a “chalice” which is highly religious because it affirms the fact that she is the symbol of a higher power. In the Christian religion, a chalice is used to hold ceremonial wine, which is something very sacred. Therefore, a chalice is meant to hold something very sacred and holy. That is why I think that in the story Mangan’s sister is described as a chalice, because she means something very sacred and holy to the narrator. The priest’s death in his own home could mean that the narrator’s hope for transcendence from his life is dead in a way, which could be why he turns to Mangan’s sister to re-kindle that hope.

            In the short story “A&P” by John Updike there is also the idea of women as a symbol, but I think that the woman in “A&P” symbolizes power rather than transcendence. The main female character is nicknamed “Queenie” which puts her in a position of power right off the bat. Sammy even says in the story that “she kind of led them,” meaning the other girls. Queenie has a commanding presence throughout the story, especially in the passage when she is walking through the aisles. He describes her as going “against the usual traffic” in the aisles, which hints that she is above the norm in a sense. This is further supported by the fact that Sammy puts the rest of the shoppers in labels such as “sheep” and “houseslaves,” which suggests that he sees everyone in the town as submissive in comparison. Sammy’s boss towards the end of the story attempts to conform and disempower the girls, which sets off Sammy’s rebellion. I think that having power is important to Sammy and Queenie symbolizes the power that he wants. I also think that when Queenie was sort of disempowered at the end by Lengel, it was symbolic of how the town he lives in does that to everyone, including Sammy himself. All of this prompted his rebellion in the end, which wasn’t even acknowledged by the very women he was idealizing. Sammy, much like the narrator in “Araby”, made a vain attempt to impress the woman who embodied the very goal he was trying to achieve.

"A&P" In Class Close Reading #3

In the short story “A&P” by John Updike there is also the idea of women as a symbol, but I think that the woman in “A&P” symbolizes power rather than transcendence. The main female character is nicknamed “Queenie” which puts her in a position of power right off the bat. Sammy even says in the story that “she kind of led them,” meaning the other girls. Queenie has a commanding presence throughout the story, especially in the passage when she is walking through the aisles. He describes her as going “against the usual traffic” in the aisles, which hints that she is above the norm in a sense. This is further supported by the fact that Sammy puts the rest of the shoppers in labels such as “sheep” and “houseslaves,” which suggests that he sees everyone in the town as submissive in comparison. Sammy’s boss towards the end of the story attempts to conform and disempower the girls, which sets off Sammy’s rebellion. I think that having power is important to Sammy and Queenie symbolizes the power that he wants. I also think that when Queenie was sort of disempowered at the end by Lengel, it was symbolic of how the town he lives in does that to everyone, including Sammy himself. All of this prompted his rebellion in the end, which wasn’t even acknowledged by the very women he was idealizing. Sammy, much like the narrator in “Araby”, made a vain attempt to impress the woman who embodied the very goal he was trying to achieve.

Expansion on chalice/religion

The idea of religion is a very prevalent theme in “Araby” and it holds a lot of meaning to the narrator. A chalice is traditionally referred to in religious aspects, and has been used in the bible since the 1300s. This idea of religion also pops up multiple times throughout the text of “Araby”. Another significant religious aspect of the story is the fact that a priest died in the narrator’s home. Religion is the ultimate form of transcendence because those who are believers believe that there is something beyond the nature world entirely, and they look to this higher force to guide them. It would make sense that this is included in the story “Araby” because it’s this transcendence from the natural world that is exactly what the narrator is looking for. It would also make sense that he would refer to Mangan’s sister as a “chalice” which is highly religious because it affirms the fact that she is the symbol of a higher power. In the Christian religion, a chalice is used to hold ceremonial wine, which is something very sacred. Therefore, a chalice is meant to hold something very sacred and holy. That is why I think that in the story Mangan’s sister is described as a chalice, because she means something very sacred and holy to the narrator. The priest’s death in his own home could mean that the narrator’s hope for transcendence from his life is dead in a way, which could be why he turns to Mangan’s sister to re-kindle that hope.

Close Reading/Body Paragraph #1

I decided to focus on the paragraph from “Araby” when the narrator describes Mangan’s sister as a “figure” and how she was “defined by the light from the half opened door”. Also in this paragraph the setting was described as a “silent street” with “dark muddy lanes”. James Joyce definitely sets up a very dreary and dismal setting which is then perforated by the image of Mangan’s sister, who is surrounded by light and is depicted as almost angelic. Describing her as "figure" instead of perhaps a body or a person says something about the narrator, because it shows that he sees her as someone more than a person he wants to get to know, but a symbol of something bigger. I think that by portraying her as higher up on the doorstep, having an authoritative voice with her brother, and being bathed in light sort of symbolizes the narrator’s wish to transcend everything that is dull around him. I see the narrator as someone who wants to be above everything that he lives in his daily life such as his lack of parents, his apathy towards school, and his overall unappealing landscape. Mangan’s sister is a symbol of this transcendence which is why he keeps her in his mind all the time and makes excuses to see her, which is shown in the line “I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes”. He considers everything in his daily life the foe, which he battles by instead focusing on the girl, or rather the “chalice”. This dream of transcendence is also why he focuses all of his energy on going to the bazaar to bring back something for Mangan’s sister, because it is yet another excuse to not focus on things like school and be in a different place of mind. It is only in the end when he realizes all of his attempts at transcendence were in vain, when he says “gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.”

Refine/Refocus

In my essay I want to talk about the influences that men and women have on each other in “A&P” and “Araby”, and how the girls seem apathetic and the men seem to have very strong feelings. I also want to talk about how both of the main male characters in the stories have dull, uninteresting, or overall unappealing lives that they use the girls to escape from, or at least the idea of them. I wanted to possibly focus on the idea that in “A&P” Queenie and her followers were described as going against the normal flow of traffic in the aisles of the store and how the other people in the store were depicted as “sheep” in comparison. I also wanted to focus on the part in “Araby” when the main character in the story was described as “carrying his chalice through a throng of foes”. These show how Mangan’s sister and Queenie are symbols of the men’s desire for excitement and hope. I think that these two passages relate to one another in that they both put the women of the stories in positions of power, and it’s the power that the men wish that they had.

First Free Write

There was one common theme that I noticed between a few of the short stories that we read, which was the way men and women influence/interact with each other. I saw this mainly in the stories “A&P” and “Araby”.  The women in these two stories both have significant meaning for the men and causes all of the action in the story, while both the men hold little to no significance to for the women. This is prevalent in the way that Queenie and her other girls don’t even notice when Sammy quits his job for them, and how Mangan’s sister only talks to the narrator once throughout the entire story. I think that these interactions hint that the women in these stories mean much more than sexual attraction to the men, and they are symbolic of a greater desire to achieve greatness and escape from their dull meaningless lives. The monotony of both the grocery store in “A&P” and the town in “Araby” is very developed in both stories, and the characters in both seem to be striving toward the promise of something more different and exciting. While I think that there is definitely a romantic interest that the men have in the women, I also think that there are other motivations that the men have for yearning for these unattainable ideals.

"A&P" by John Updike

After reading “A&P” by John Updike, I noticed that there were many similarities between this story and the short story “Araby”. First of all, the main plot of both of the stories seem to be motivated by female desire, in “A&P” it is Sammy’s desire of Queenie, and in “Araby” it is the narrator’s desire of Mangan’s sister. Both of these main characters also desire the women from afar, and don’t have any significant interaction with the women other than observing them. This could say something about the power of women and how without even trying women can cause life changes in men. In “A&P” Sammy quit his job based on the sole principle that he didn’t like the way that his boss treated the woman he desired in the story, even though it was made clear in the story that this decision would cause problems for him and his family. In “Araby” the narrator’s entire life is practically driven by a woman, and he finds himself going to great lengths just to be near her and please her. These two instances in these short stories show how the power of female desire can derail men and how it gives women immense power. 

"Araby" revisited

After revisiting “Araby”, I realized that the Araby bazaar itself was a very strong symbol in the story. The narrator in the story uses the Araby to disconnect himself from his dull world for a time, and chooses to only focus on Araby rather than anything else. This is shown in the story by the narrator falling asleep in class, the rest of the world being described as “blind” “brown” and “somber”, and how Araby is one of the few things that has an excitement factor in the story. This shows Araby is a symbol of the narrator’s detachment from his life. This is similar to the movie The Red Balloon and how the red balloon was a symbol of the little boy’s detachment from his life. Also, in both of these stories their symbols of detachment are destroyed in the end with Araby being closed in darkness, and the bully popping the balloon. This hints at a larger meaning that while you can detach yourself from an unhappy life with something meaningless for a time, it is always short lived and you always have to come back to reality. Distractions may be a temporary solution, but they are never a permanent solution.