Initiation

Initiation: When Boys Become Men

At some point in every boy's life he is faced with a situation that acts as a rite of passage. This rite of passage enlightens the boy and shows him a greater meaning and a wider truth to the world. An event could be big or small, but the effect is always revealing of some deeper meaning. This event can be anything from simply discovering something about the world as a whole or as large as realizing that the world is not all fun and games. Two short stories, James Joyce's Araby and John Updike's A&P tell of two young men who find themselves in situations where they realize life is not quite as it seems. The stories contain many similarities in the situations that occur for both young boys during their initiation. Both are faced with improbable odds, grand and extravagant ideas of how reality will be, and both become enchanter by young women.

Both stories put the young men in situations with improbable odds. In Araby the young boy is trying to impress his crush but the situation is out of his control and he fails to purchase a gift for his crush (Joyce 618). A&P is the story of a young man, Sammy, who quits his job in the futile attempt to impress a girl whose name he did not even know (Updike 18). Both boys have wound up in situations that they know are hopeless, but they follow through anyways and the aftermath is where they learn their lesson. The aftermath is when the initiation becomes evident to them.

The boys both see themselves doing something grand and extravagant and winning the girl over, but when they try to follow through they realize that it doesn't work that way in real life. They find their grandeur and extravagance comes off in a much less spectacular way then they had imagined it in their heads. The child in Araby imagines finding the young lady a great gift at the bazaar, but when he arrives he realizes he does not have enough money and can not afford to buy the young lady a gift (Joyce 616). Sammy quits his job at the A&P in order to try and impress "Queenie" but by the time he exit's the super market he sees the girls driving off in the car without so much as a second glance back (Updike 18). His heroic action goes unseen by the damsel in distress.

Another similarity is that both boys becoming enchanted by females that they know very little about. Sammy has seen Queenie for the first time in A&P (Updike 15) and the child in Araby is only a distant admirer