Nubbled pink top. Compare and Contrast Two Short Stories Essay Example 2023-01-07

A&P (short story)

I uncrease the bill, tenderly as you may imagine, it just having come from between the two smoothest scoops of vanilla I had ever known were there, and pass a half and a penny into her narrow pink palm, and nestle the herrings in a bag and twist its neck and hand it over, all the time thinking. There wasn't anybody but some young married screaming with her children about some candy they didn't get by the door of a powder-blue Falcon station wagon. Still with that prim look she lifts a folded dollar bill out of the hollow at the center of her nubbled pink top. She kept her eyes moving across the racks, and stopped, and turned so slow it made my stomach rub the inside of my apron, and buzzed to the other two, who kind of huddled against her for relief, and they all three of them went up the cat-and-dog-food-breakfast-cereal-macaroni-ri ce-raisins-seasonings-spreads-spaghetti-soft drinks- rackers-and- cookies aisle. She'd been watching cash registers forty years and probably never seen a mistake before By the time I got her feathers smoothed and her goodies into a bag -- she gives me alittle snort in passing, if she'd been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem -- by the time I get her on her way the girls had circled around the bread and were coming back, without a pushcart , back my way along the counters, in the aisle between the check-outs and the Special bins. She must have felt in the corner of her eye me and over my shoulder Stokesie in the second slot watching, but she didn't tip. Entering the story near the end, he represents the system: management, policy, decency, and the way things are.

Compare and Contrast Two Short Stories Essay Example

Fancy Herring Snacks flashed in her very blue eyes. She came down a little hard on her heels, as if she didn't walk in her bare feet that much, putting down her heels and then letting the weight move along to her toes as if she was testing the floor with every step, putting a little deliberate extra action into it. He has known Sammy's parents for a long time, and he tells Sammy that he should, at least for his parents' sake, not quit his job in such a dramatic, knee-jerk way. Compare and Contrast Two Short Stories Araby by James Joyce and Araby by James Joyce, on the other hand, is a story about a boy and his first love. He pointed, they pointed, and they shuffled out of sight behind a pyramid of Diet Delight peaches. .

John Updike

She came down a little hard on her heels, as if she didn't walk in her bare feet that much, putting down her heels and then letting the weight move along to her toes as if she was testing the floor with every step, putting a little deliberate extra action into it. He comes over and says, "Girls, this isn't the beach. Like Sammy, he also observes the girls in the store with interest, although not to the point he is fully distracted. But there was no doubt, this jiggled them. He could not remember what exactly his reply was to the girl but proceeded to tell her that he would get her something if he would go. Fancy Herring Snacks flashed in her very blue eyes "Girls, I don't want to argue with you.

A&P

The bow tie is theirs, if you've ever wondered. Still with that prim look she lifts a folded dollar bill out of the hollow at the center of her nubbled pink top. If it hadn't been there you wouldn't have known there could have been anything whiter than those shoulders. She held her head so high her neck, coming up out o fthose white shoulders, looked kind of stretched, but I didn't mind. Gilbert Porter November 1972. A couple customers that had been heading for my slot begin to knock against each other, like scared pigs in a chute Lengel sighs and begins to look very patient and old and gray. Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream: 49¢.

Then everybody's luck begins to run out. Lengel's pretty dreary, teaches Sunday school and the rest, but he doesn't miss that much. I look around for my girls, but they're gone, of course. You never know for sure how girls' minds w ork do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glassjar? They didn't even have shoes on. Now here comes the sad part of the story, at:least my family says it's sad but I don't think it's sad myself. I forgot to say he thinks he's going to be manager some sunny day, maybe in 1990 when it's called the Great Alexandrov and Petrooshki Tea Company or something. That's policy for you.

Looking back in the big windows, over the bags of peat moss and aluminum lawn furniture stacked on the pavement, I could see Lengel in my place in the slot, checking the sheep through. I forgot to say he thinks he's going to be manager some sunny day, maybe in 1990 when it's called the Great Alexandrov and Petrooshki Tea Company or something What he meant was, our town is five miles from a beach, with a big summer colony out on the Point, but we're right in the middle of town, and the women generally put on a shirt or shorts or something before they get out of the car into the street. It's true, I don't. What the others want is juvenile delinquency All this while, the customers had been showing up with their carts but, you know, sheep, seeing a scene, they had all bunched up on Stokesie, who shook open a paper bag as gently as peeling a peach, not wanting to miss a word. Now her hands are empty, not a ring or a bracelet, bare as God made them , and I wonder where the money's coming from. I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell. The girls, and who'd blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say "I quit" to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they'll stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero.

All that was left for us to see was old McMahon patting his mouth and looking after them sizing up their joints. She'd been watching cash registers forty years and probably never seen a mistake before. Through Sammy, the reader can vividly imagine how the girl looks and how or why it made so much impact to Sammy that he decided to quit his job just because the girls were embarrassed by the manager. What the others want is juvenile delinquency. Queenie puts down the jar and I take it into my fingers icy cold.

But Queenie appears not to notice and leaves the store promptly, diminishing the impact of Sammy's impulsive gesture. The longer her neck was, the more of her there was. It was late when he finally received the money and there were few stalls left open when he arrived at Araby. The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle -- the girls were walking against the usual traffic not that we have one-way signs or anything -- were pretty hilarious. Policy is what the kingpins want.

The jar went heavy in my hand. That's policy for you. Sammy then feels a sense of dread, thinking to himself how hard his life will be from now on. You never know for sure how girls' minds work do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glassjar? As I say, we're right in the middle of town, and if you stand at our front doors you can see two banks and the Congregational church and the newspaper store and three real-estate offices and about twenty-seven old free-loaders tearing up Central Street because the sewer broke again. Yet when Queenie approaches him at the checkout, Sammy notes that "with a prim look she lifts a folded dollar bill out of the hollow at the center of her nubbled pink top. Looking back in the big windows, over the bags of peat moss and aluminum lawn furniture stacked on the pavement, I could see Lengel in my place in the slot, checking the sheep through.

The longer her neck was, the more of her there was She must have felt in the corner of her eye me and over my shoulder Stokesie in the second slot watching, but she didn't tip. I could feel in the silence everybody getting nervous, most of all Lengel, who asks me, "Sammy, have you rung up this purchase? He notes, for instance, that there are "about twenty-seven old freeloaders" working on a sewer main up the street, and he wonders what the "bum" in "baggy gray pants" could possibly do with "four giant cans of pineapple juice". He also, however, clearly admires how her inappropriate attire defies convention. Now her hands are empty, not a ring or a bracelet, bare as God made them, and I wonder where the money's coming from. One advantage to this scene taking place in summer, I can follow this up with a clean exit, there's no fumbling around getting your coat and galoshes, I just saunter into the electric eye in my white shirt that my mother ironed the night before, and the door heaves itself open, and outside the sunshine is skating around on the asphalt.