Identifying the Model (or Arc) of Maturity in Two Narratives Essay by Top Papers

The following brief paper will look at the model - this writer prefers to call it arc - of maturity in two stories: Alberto Alvaro Rios,' "The Secret Lion," and John Updike's, "A&P". In the first of the two stories, the boys learn that they cannot remain children forever - something that, in truth, they have understood on an intuitive level for some time. In the latter story by John Updike, maturity comes Sammy comes to the stark realization that actions have consequences and that quitting something, anything, will have repercussions for people besides himself. In a real sense, the characters in Rios' story come to understand that there is a hierarchy in the world and that things will not always be as they wish them to be; in Updike's tale, Sammy learns that - as, presumably, his generation will learn - that defiance has its costs.