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.