Language and Point of View in A&P and The Age of Innocence

1. A & P The Age of Innocence or Ignorance Language and Point of View

2. Housekeeping 1, 2, 3 • 1. Mini play dress rehearsal 12/16 (Wed) 12:30-3:30 • 2. • 3. “recorder” marked on the discussion board??? (Yes: 1, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12) Our email address: introlit2014@gmail.com

3. Outline • Your Discussion • General Introduction • Structure Queenie in grace, disgraced, and the “hero” fights back to no avail. • Language and Style  contrasting two kinds of people • Discussion: • Characters, Problem-Solution, Setting, Language, Action, • Points of View • Ending(s) • The Swimming Suit Issue: Sammy vs. the Others • Setting Re-Creation

4. The Two Stories The Sound Collector 20/20 [aftermath] dating and married, happily ever after? • Sound [Seymour & Bill] willing to join the others’ world of imagination? Bill didn’t embrace the opinions of Ruthie, but Seymour did embrace Leonard’s ideas, which is interesting for us because it’s quite ironic that children can accept new ideas but adults don’t.

5. Functions of Literature • Understand different people • Improve English skills • Kill time; identify with characters • Lit. records social events, passing down historical knowledge • Consoles us when we are in bad. [author] expresses him/herself. • [not escape or fantasy] studying literature can also broaden and expand our horizon by changing our perspective about the world • it provokes critical thinking, gets us acquainted with other cultures, and initiates reflection. 

6. A&P General Introduction

7. John Updike & “A&P” Updike on “A&P” John Updike (1932–2009) • Originally he had 3 more pages describing Sam’s going up to the beach to find the girls, but without success • A filmic adaptation, followed by an interview • 18:40 – why write; • 20:48 -- class difference & ending – “Crossing the Rubicon” • 24:21 – original ending 25:20 -- setting Norton

8. “A&P” Characters • Sammy • Lengel, Stokesie, McMahon (at the meat counter) • 3 girls: (par 2) • The First Friend (“Plaid”) • The Second Friend (“Big Goony Goony) • Queenie • Customers

9. Structure –Rescuing the Queen • Beginning: In media res – in the middle of a sequence of an event or a story. • Long description of the three girls with a focus on Queenie, juxtaposed with short descriptions of the other customers. • Middle: “Now here comes the sad part of the story” (par 11) • confrontation between the girls and Lengel; • Between Lengel and Sammy • Ending: out of the supermarket.

10. “A&P” Structure • In medias res (Latin "in the midst of things")

11. Q&A: Your Responses • Sammy & Queenie

12. Sammy’s Language (1) • Colloquial: omission, rep, coined words, run-on S and misplaced modifier – pars 13, 52 –first sentences.) • Concrete with vivid details and things he is familiar with (e.g. games, women’s bodily parts--breasts and bottoms, supermarket) • Vivid and imaginative: e.g. the girl’s voice (par 14), the sound of the cash register (par 21).

13. Sammy’s Language (2) 4. Stereotyping and exaggerative: Tends to divide up people into two groups--one he likes, and one he dislikes—and exaggerates their differences. (e.g. Sheep vs. Queen) e.g. “You could see them [the other customers], when Queenie's white shoulders dawned on them, kind of jerk, or hop, or hiccup, but their eyes snapped back to their own baskets and on they pushed.” (par 5) Other descriptions of the customers (par 12, 30) e.g. Queenie vs. the dynamites

14. Example of Sammy’s Language (3)—Queenie • Queenie:-- sex + queenly manners • The way she walks; square-shouldered and long-necked. • “the oaky hair that the sun and salt had bleached.” • She had on a kind of dirty-pink—beige maybe, I don't know—bathing suit with a little nubble all over it and, what got me, the straps were down; • shining rim; top of her chest like “a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light” • The bill from the girl’s cleavage: “from between the two smoothest scoops of vanilla I had ever known...."

15. Summary and Preview: Point of View • Participant (or first-person) point of view; --1) as protagonist: e.g. “A & P,” “Boys and Girls” “Araby” -- 2) as witness (“we” –”A Rose for Emily”) (*Issue—reliable nor not) • Non-participant (or third-person) point of view. --1) neutral omniscience –objective --2) editorial omniscience – (with judgment) --3) selective omniscience -- e.g. “20/20”  Enter the mind or not;  stream of consciousness (later)

16. Point of View: Related Issues • the “I-narrator” is not the author • E.g. “The author described the woman as a "witch". This analogy not only described her appearance, but also her personality. She likes to pick on others, and Sammy was the victim this time.” • Sense of Immediacy, sympathy –induced by first-person point of view?  “A & P” • Objectivity, human littleness? –suggested by third-person point of view? “20/20”? • Only one point of view in telling a story? No. The change of point of view or tone means a lot.

17. Discussion Questions: Story Element Charts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJImoQJsgEs

18. Discussion Questions • 8. Group 12: View Points on Sam [Compare & Contrast] Sammy’s self-perception vs. Queenie’s or Lengel’s views of him (description or performance of dialogue) • 9. Group 9: Ending –What do we make of it? Would you quit the job if you were in Sam’s position? • 10. Group 3: Endings – Which ending do you prefer?* • 11. Group 11: Swimming Suit or not: The Girls’, Sammy’s, Lengel’s, Stoksie’s and the Other Customers’ Points of View (description or performance) • 12. –Group 7 Setting & Theme (re-creation)

19. Let’s Take a Break!!! • And start our group discussion 10:16- 11:06 • Come back to this classroom at 11:16 sharp!

20. Period 2: Discussion Time 10:15-11:00

21. The Character (1)—Sammy • Is he a sexist? • Attentive to sexual details and judgmental (“Queenie and Plaid and Big Tall Goony-Goony (not that as raw material she was so bad), ”); • About the girls’ minds: “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 glass jar?) ” • Wants to play hero, but he is not and cannot be one. • His move futile; he is self-centered, but he is indeed courageous. • *(Note: Updike’s ambiguity & sympathy)

22. Sammy’s Point of View of the “Sheep“ • The middle-aged customer --"about fifty," and a "witch" of the sort he's learned once flourished in nearby Salem; with"rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows" but nothing else that might stir him in the direction of sympathy.” (par 1) • I bet you could set off dynamite in an A&P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists and muttering . . .(par 5) • "house slaves in pin curlers“; (par 5) • "old party in baggy gray pants who stumbles up [to his checkout lane] with four giant cans of pineapple juice" (par 12) • "women with six children and varicose veins mapping their legs." (par 10) • "like scared pigs in a chute“; (par 30) •  Is Sammy a reliable narrator?

23. The Character (2)— The Queen –Is she really queenly? • Seemingly proud and self-assured – • slow-motioned and a bit exaggerated in her walk; • Holds her head tall; • In response to Lengel • Her voice when speaking to Lengel; (par. 14) • Feeble attempt at defending herself: “My mother…” “We’re decent.” (par 18) • Her family background, different from Sammy’s

24. Herring snacks Cocktail Drink with olive Lemonade and Schlitz (beer) Glasses with cartoon figures Class Differences between Q & S Par. 14

25. The Character (3)— Lengel • Order-keeper, trying to educate the girls, only to embarrass them • unchangeable and authoritative "We want you decently dressed when you come in here." • Responsible, doing his work (haggling with cabbage truck driver; taking up Sammy’s position); Stern: “His face was dark gray and his back stiff” with an injection of iron) • Knows Sammy’s family “Lengel sighs and begins to look very patient and old and gray. He's been a friend of my parents for years…” • Warning (too serious or fair): "You'll feel this for the rest of your life,"

26. Setting • Time: 1961 (early 60’s, with the spirit of conformity still prevalent, but rebellion starting to emerge (e.g. Elvis Presley, Hippies) • A supermarket (aisles of commodities, “the fluorescent lights, … those stacked packages”) • in a US small town, 5 miles from a beach and north of Boston. The supermarket faces “two banks and the Congregational church and the newspaper store and three real-estate offices and about twenty-seven old free-loaders …”  commercial center, busy and messy.“freeloaders?” – stereotype of workers?

27. Ending(1):What Happens? • “"You'll feel this [regret] for the rest of your life," Lengel says, and I know that's true, too.” • The girls gone; • Sammy’s action: “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.” • Sammy’s feeling: “His face was dark gray and his back stiff, as if he'd just had an injection of iron, and my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.”

28. Ending(2):What Happens? • After Sammy quits, he goes out to the parking lot and sees not the girls, but “some young married screaming with her children about some candy they didn’t get.” Images suggesting • Sammy leaving social conformity : electric eye • Leaving Materialist society: married woman screaming with her kids about not getting candy • For a free outside world: with sunshine (vs. electric eye) • With family influences: white shirt • Finding the world tough to him: Lengel’s dark grey face and stiff back.

29. Ending (2) • Original Ending (2) Going to the beach means: Sammy going on a failed quest for the girls • Ending (1): a decision made abruptly and then followed through (with regret) only by leaving the supermarket

30. Swimming Suit Issue • Social Propriety: Respecting local customs and manners • Avoiding confrontation • Swimming suit’s symbolic meanings: freedom, leisure, sexuality

31. Putting Sammy in his Position Analyzing his Point of View (vs. the Others) and his Social Position (in the Setting)

32. Sammy in Context (1): the Other Characters (2): Stokesie, McMahon and Lengel. • Stokesie – • ‘"Oh Daddy," Stokesie said beside me. "I feel so faint." "Darling," I said. "Hold me tight." Stokesie's married, with two babies chalked up on his fuselage already, but as far as I can tell that's the only difference.” . . .wants to be a manager. • old McMahon—”patting his mouth and looking after them sizing up their joints. Poor kids, I began to feel sorry for them, they couldn't help it.” • Lengel: patient and old and gray •  more practical or less polite in their stare at the girls. • How would they look at Sammy? • How about the shoppers?

33. Sammy in Context (2): Setting & Imagery  Symbolic Meanings? • Supermarket: fluorescent light (vs. sunlight), checkerboard green-and-cream rubber-tile floor.(par 6) • A lot of merchandize: e.g. a pyramid of Diet Delight peaches, Caribbean Six or Tony Martin Sings, plastic toys, etc.. • Images of the mundane, the business world and capitalism  which places people, as consumers and workers, in different classes and increases their differences. • What difference would it make if this story were placed in another setting?

34. Theme and Message • The story as an initiation story (成長故事) in which the 19-year-old Sammy has a rite of passage (成年禮) at a supermarket. • Self (Personal Aspiration) against Society (Social Control) • Does he grow up? • Yes, he realizes he cannot be a hero. But his realization is a bit self-centered and too dramatic.

35. Next Time • Another initiation story “Boys & Girls.” • Be patient when reading the images which will later take on symbolic meanings when they get grouped together (in image clusters).