Updike and Hawthorne

Paper Summary:

This paper provides a comparison between John Updike's "A & P" and Nathanial Hawthorne's "The Birthmark". The main characters are analyzed as both are seen as striving for too much and too fast and losing touch with reality and the present.

From the Paper:

"John Updike's "A & P" and Nathanial Hawthorne's "The Birthmark" both focus on one incident in the life of a relationship, each in their own way using symbolism to show to us the ways in which by reaching too far and desiring too much of the future the men involved lose the present.
Updike's 1961 coming-of-age story follows a boy's thwarted attempts to impress a girl, showing in the end how this boy, the narrator Sammy, instead only impresses himself with the difficulty of being an adult. It is at the same time the story of how Sammy comes to recognize his own agency, the fact that he has the ability to set his own course in life. This is a crucial point in each person's life, that moment when we realize that we have become one of the "adults", and while fate can always step in for good or evil we have come to have a significant say in our own affairs. "

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