Essay --

Throughout poetry, drama, and fiction, there exist themes and symbols that reelect readers a dose of reality and human experience. People read belles-lettres and end up learning new facts about themselves that they never knew before. This usually happens when the reader is reading literature that they can relate to. An example of this is flood tide of age stories. When adolescents read these stories, they realize that they sh ar the feelings of the characters and have even had ex metamorphoseable experiences. In these stories, the main character is trying to figure out who they are in the eyes of other hatful. But what they do not receive is that they must discover their own identity before other people decide who they are. Two stories that make use of this theme are Araby by James Joyce and A & P by John Updike. Both of these stories lark characters that are coming to terms with their fantasies and realities, and this relates to readers because it deals with the idea of peo ple wanting what they cannot have. In A & P, the teller, Sammy, observes three young girls, dressed simply in bathe suits, who enter the supermarket in which he works. Sammy notices these girls immediately and takes note of every event of their being. He especially pays attention to the leader of the girls, whom he calls Queenie (Updike 33). Queenie and her friends enter the supermarket believe they are decent (Updike 35). Every customer in the store watches them, and they enrapture the attention they are receiving. The act of entering the store in only bathing suits shows that the girls are both confident and innocent. They do not get laid that they are dressed inappropriately, and they are clearly comfortable enough with themselves to straits in wearing bikinis. ... ... Queenie was innocent of the fact that she was dressed inappropriately. She entered the store in a bikini because she was confident of herself, not because she was rebelling against the rules of the store. Sammys thoughts of Queenie were merely an illusion. The narrator from Araby is different. He does not have a specific vision for his life, but rather a desire for change. His life in Dublin lacks in excitement, and compensates for this by obsessing over Mangans sister. He desires fulfillment and satisfaction from change even though he is uncertain of what change will bring. He thinks change will bring adventure and exhilaration, but he learns at the bazaar that it is nothing more than accents and vases. Both of these stories can relate to readers because they both deal with the idea of wanting what we cannot have. Fantasy is very different from reality.