Free Essay On A Compare And Contrast On A&P And I Stand Here Ironing

John Updike’s ‘A&P’ and Tillie Olsen’s ‘I Stand Here Ironing’ are two short stories that seemingly do not have anything similar, yet they share some themes that form the central core of the stories. Although there are distinct differences between the two short stories, the themes of conflict, feminism, and self-analysis run through both the stories.
Updike is multifaceted, being a novelist, a literary critic, and a poet. He was a prolific writer and is one of the very few writers who won the Pulitzer Prize more than once. Most characters in his works go through a personal conflict and have to respond to crises relating to religion and/or domestic obligations. His short story ‘A&P’ is also along similar lines where the narrator Sammy goes through a personal conflict of choosing between conformity and rebellion. The narrative begins when Sammy sees three girls dressed in bikinis walking barefoot into the store. Although they do not pay much attention to him, he watches them walk around the shop and analyses their choice of products. He also speculates about the personalities of each of the girls, and jokes about them with his co-worker Stokesie. The problem begins when the store manager Lengel rebukes the girls for walking into the store wearing revealing bikinis. Sammy does not like this. He tells Lengel that he quit the job and walks out of the store. The girls do not notice him even when all this was happening. Although Sammy hopes to see them when he walked out, he does not. Even though Lengel urges him to stay in his position, Sammy thinks he needs to carry on with his decision. At the end of the story, he walks out with ambiguous thoughts and a sense of foreboding about his future.
Olsen was an American author and one of the first generation of the American feminists. Her works were influenced largely by her life and she wrote a great deal about the struggles of women and the poor. She was also a political activist, with mostly communist ideals and she tried to bring the two elements of feminism and communism together in her works. Her short story, ‘I Stand Here Ironing’ is partly an autobiographical story. The narrator is a woman who gets a phone call from a person (could have been a counselor or a teacher) asking about her daughter, Emily. The narrator is ironing when she gets the call. During the course of the call and the ironing, she recalls about her life and her daughter Emily. She talks and thinks about the various places that Emily had to grow up in because she could not afford to take care of her. She also wonders if she could have done things differently and thinks carefully about why she, being the mother, should know everything about her child. The narrator thinks about Emily as a kid, growing up with her grandparents and in day care centers. The narrator is also in the present taking care of her son and watching Emily come home, and get something to eat. After listing out all the possible causes for Emily’s troubles, the narrator finally hopes that Emily will eventually see herself as a valuable creation in this world.
In comparing the two short stories, there are some obvious differences. To begin with, the narrative style in the short stories is different. Although both the short stories are from a first person narrative, the styles are different, with Sammy in A&P recounting events in the present while the narrator in I Stand Here Ironing oscillates between the past and the present. Reflecting his age (he is nineteen), Sammy’s dialogues are colloquial and not serious and there is nothing colloquial about the other narrator. The narrator in, ‘I Stand Here Ironing’ is a woman and a mother who is having a serious conversation with someone on the phone. The settings of the stories are also different. While Sammy works in a supermarket, the narrator in ‘I Stand Here Ironing’ is at home, doing house chores and worrying about her children. Her narration is also often disorderly as opposed to Sammy’s narrative, which is just about one incident that happened at work. In ‘I Stand Here Ironing’, the narrator uses the iron as a symbol of her thoughts between the past, the present and the future. The constant movement of the Iron also symbolizes the constant efforts she makes to help her child. In ‘A&P’, however, the brands in the store serve as symbols for the narrator to think about the differences in class between him and the girls.
The plot and the number of characters in both the stories are also different. There are only four characters who talk between themselves in ‘I Stand Here Ironing’ whereas there are seven in A&P. Unlike the conversation over the phone in the ‘I Stand Here Ironing’ story, in A&P, the dialogues are between the various characters in the store. In ‘I Stand Here Ironing’, the author uses the technique of inner monologue. The inner monologue, which reflects her thoughts, could be answers to herself or an imagined audience. She seems answering to the person on the phone, but they are not the real answers. The atmosphere in ‘A&P’ is much livelier when compared to the dim and acute space in ‘I Stand Here Ironing’.
There are, however, many similarities between the two short stories. For instance, both the short stories are about the internal and the external conflicts that both the narrators face in their lives. In ‘I Stand Here Ironing’, the narrator goes through a personal conflict and tries to confront with her failure as a mother. She questions herself if her daughter had turned out the way she had because of her upbringing. The external conflict is between the narrator and the person on the phone. The narrator does not want the need to know everything about the daughter because she is the mother. Also, she does not feel the need to explain her daughter’s behavior to the person on the phone. There are also other external conflicts present throughout her narrative. She has to fight against poverty and illnesses to raise her child and this affects Emily’s growth and character. The setting of the conflict is more internal than external. She goes back and forth alternatively blaming herself and justifying her choices in bringing up Emily. In ‘A&P’ too, the conflict is both internal and external. The internal conflict is the personal conflict that Sammy goes through. He is conflicted between conforming to the rules of the store and conforming to the rules set by the store manager. Sammy does not want to be caught up in the corporate culture like his colleague Stokeskie, who has to work in the store because he is married. Sammy always feels that he is beyond all these things and is skeptical about his present condition. He also does not want to be like Lengel who is petty and wants to play everything by the rules. In ‘I Stand Here Ironing’, the phone call leads to a personal conflict in the narrator. The arrival of the girls in bikinis begins a personal conflict within Sammy. Although Sammy rebels against what he sees with the arrival of the girls, he realizes the girls reject authority. He understands that when one of the girls tells Lengel that she is here to buy Herrings snacks for her mother, she is not trying to apologize for her behavior but is rather trying not to complain nosily. This sets off the conflict within him, and makes him quit his job. The external conflict in ‘A&P’ is the conflict between Sammy and Lengel, the store manager. Sammy takes offense to his behavior and quits as a protest. In spite of Lengel’s warning, Sammy walks out of the store.
There is also a feminism running through both the stories. Sammy becomes an unwitting feminist when he takes up the cause of the girls, especially Queenie, the girl he thinks is the leader of the three. He realizes that they do not have to conform to the rigid rules about behavior and clothing as set by men and the society and that they are free to do whatever they want to. This, however, is in conflict to the Sammy that we see in the beginning of the story. When he notices the girls walk in the store, he acts like any normal man would do. He is attracted to them, especially Queenie physically and jokes about them with his colleagues. He also talks about their minds saying no one really knows how a girl’s mind works. But later on in the story, he did a feminist protest saying that he is in solidarity with them in their choice of dressing and that women should be respected in spite of what they are wearing. Although he does not verbalize this, his actions prove it. There is also a feminism running through ‘I Stand Here Ironing’. The narrator agonizes over her decision to work and care for her child and sometime blames herself for the way Emily has turned out to be. There is also a tendency to take the responsibility of Emily’s upbringing on herself. Nowhere in the story is the dad taking care of Emily. Olsen uses her guilt in the narrator to give a feminist perspective to the whole story. When the narrator wonders why she should know everything about Emily because she is her mother, she is making a protest against gender based roles for women. The narrator does her best to bring up her child in the absence of her father and that shows a strong woman. The narrator is supposed to handle everything from the household chores to the upbringing of the kids to having a professional career and doing everything without complaining. When she says at the end of the story that she hopes Emily will not be a cloth like the one on the Iron table, she reasserts her feminist thinking.
There is also a theme of self analysis that runs through both the stories. The narrator in ‘I Stand Here Ironing’ examines herself and the life of Emily constantly to find answers to the questions the person on the telephone is asking. Sammy’s self analysis is in comparison to his colleagues. He knows he does not want to be either like stokeskie, a corporate slave or like Lengel, a typical manager. He knows that he is above these things. At the end of the story, when he looks at Lengel through the glass, he wonders for a moment if what he did was right.
In conclusion, the two short stories share some very important themes although they have completely different plots and characters. The themes of conflict, feminism and self analysis run through the stories although they are different on many levels.