Motif of Play in John Updikes A&P Essay -- John Updike A&P

The Motif of Play in A & P  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the short story "A & P" the author, John Updike, uses the motif of play as one of the main means by which he develops the character of Sammy, the nineteen-year-old narrator and protagonist of the story. In his many and varied references to play, Sammy reveals, along with his obvious immaturity, his rich imagination and potential for possible growth. The story takes place in the summertime of 1960 on a Thursday afternoon. Sammy is employed at the A & P grocery store located in the middle of a town north of Boston, about five miles from the beach. Along with Sammy, the other characters involved in this story are three girls shopping in the A & P in their bathing suits, whom Sammy names Plaid, Queenie and Big Tall Goony-Goony; Stokesie, Sammy's married co-worker; and Lengel, the A & P manager. "A & P" is told from Sammy's point of view. Sammy presents himself as a nonchalant and flippant young man. He appears to be somewhat contemptuous of the older people shopping in the store. However, near the end of the story, we see that he does take responsibility for his conscience-driven behavior and decision, revealing his passage out of adolescence into adulthood through the courage of his convictions. We see Sammy's immaturity at its worst with his snide labeling of the customers in the A & P. An example of this occurs when he calls one lady "a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows" (p.33). Sammy places the blame on her for his mistake at the cash register. He claims she would have been burned at the stake in Salem if she had been alive then. In another instance, he refers to the housewives shopping as "houseslaves in pin curlers" (p.34). He seems to be fo... ...gives him some insight into his future. As he is walking away from the A & P he sees "Lengel in [his] place in the slot, checking the sheep through. 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" (p.37). Sammy begins his transition from adolescence into adulthood here. He realizes that if he stays at the A & P he may end up like Lengel or the other sheep. He wants more out of life and his fantasy about being Queenie's "unsuspected hero" (p.36) allows him to escape. Sammy comes to the conclusion that life is not going to be easy and he is going to make decisions for himself that the people around him will not necessarily support. Work Cited Updike, John. "A & P." Literature (4th ed). Ed. Robert DiYanni. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998.

Unprofessional Conduct

In 2005 I started working for a school system and right from the start I could see that there was some unprofessionalism in some of the employees there. To me unprofessional means not acting as if you were at you place of business or acting as though you are at home or out with your friends. That is how the persons I worked with acted; however, to me Mrs. Petit did nothing of the sort. She was not at her place of work; she did not harm any students so I see now unprofessionalism. What she was doing was having a life outside of work which I thought we were all as citizens entitled to do. When I think of the word immoral in the context of the teaching profession I think of teachers like the ones I worked with walking around the school building talking badly about the elementary and middle school students they were teaching during school hours. I do think that Mr. or Mrs.  Petit acted immorally in the eyes of the society around them even though they were just living their own lives for which this country was founded, but not to the extent that any harm should have come to them. Was she teaching the children right from wrong? Well yes and no, she taught the children with this mishap that it was right to follow your feelings and to be a leader in society not a follower not to go with the norm, but she also showed that she had no disregard for the laws of the state she lived in by breaking the law for sexual misconduct. I can not even count on my fingers how many teachers I would deem unfit to teach and Mrs. Petit is not one of them. To me being unfit to teach is a person that thinks that yelling at children is a good thing, or a teacher that is willing to put their hands on someone’s child to discipline them, or most of the so called teachers now who believe that teaching the children to past a test is preparing them for life. What Mrs. Petit did can not be deemed as a person who is unfit to teach, she was proven to be an outstanding teacher and never harmed a student, they were very well educated and that is because of her. In this case the board was justified due to the fact that she was arrested for breaking the law which would cause a problem for the community whom would of course be outraged by this. I personally believe that they had no just cause in terminating her employment because there was no harm to the children and she had learned her lesson which she could have used as a basis to discourage not only her students but persons in general from doing things that are illegal. I do not think that what one does in there personal lives as long as it does not in any way transfer into their professional lives should not be the basis for being deemed unfit for their profession or unprofessional in anyway. For example if Mr.  Carter was a teacher and he never did anything to harm his students or co-workers and he went to a club on a Friday night, while at this club he saw a beautiful woman but did not see her face and he walked up behind her and said something like hey beautiful you are looking fine in that dress, the woman turned around at it was a co-worker of his she gets him fired because he made a pass at her while not at work how is this right? What is this teaching the children? It tells them never to try to get a date because it could cost you your job. This example and the story of Mrs. Petit teach children to never have a life outside of work or never get a job that is all it does the rules need to change. The difference between the two cases was that she got arrested and the other person did not. Do I think that it was consistent absolutely not? To me the courts had not taken into consideration that the board did not prove that she was an unfit teacher they just proved that she had been arrested for being an individual having fun. She did not harm any of her students, she did not hurt any of her co-workers, she was not on school property and she did not violate the rules of her contract as a teacher unless those rules state that you can not have a life outside of work and if you are married it must be monogamous. I think that the courts should have stated that the only true reason they could fire her was because she now had a criminal record and even that should have a fine line because she again did not harm anyone not even her husband because he was there and approved. I think that these so called morals in this country are dumb because everyone has their own mind and should be able to decide what is moral and immoral to them without having to live by a standard of anyone else. The only time I think an employer should know what is going on with an employee’s off the job conduct is when it can directly affect their job or bring harm to other people. If the person has committed a real crime such as murder, child abuse, child molestation, rape, if they are being abused themselves, or involved in other illegal dealings. I think that it is high time society got off of their high horses and stop thinking that they can decide how the person next to them lives their lives. People need to stop worrying about what religion other people practice, who marries whom, who is eating what and worry about real issues like why are so many of our children are going to bed hungry, why our children are out here committing crimes instead of getting an education, and why there are so many people in the streets because they can not get a job. Those are real issues and until people realize that everyone is created equal and that our forefathers came to this country to get away from all of the bull crap that was going on elsewhere society will never change it will only get worse. Things will never get better until we as a people better ourselves. No one should be ridiculed for not being as smart as another, for not eating like someone else, for not having the same religion as another, for not being attracted to the sex you think they should be attracted to, or for having an open marriage we were given these minds to think for ourselves not to think like everyone else. The world is not black and white it is a rainbow made up of browns, reds, greens, yellows and every other color so I think everyone should be free to do like my religions states â€Å"harm none, and do what ye will† meaning do what you want as long as you do not harm anyone else. Unprofessional Conduct UNPROFESSIONAL CONDUCT Introduction Andre Hamilton had spent eight years in the United States Air Force. While in the service, he learned how to conduct himself in a professional manner, and he learned to respect others. He wanted to become a manager so he completed a bachelor’s degree in organizational management at the University of LaVerne. After graduating from school, his confidence soared to a point where he felt he was in a position of great demand by potential employers. In 1996, while looking through Sunday’s Press Enterprise newspaper, he saw an ad for a job fair.Thinking of the companies that would be present at the job fair, he decided to attent. The day of the job fair arrived. His interviews came down to two companies, G. M. A. C. and The Office Supply Store. Both interviews went extremely well. On Friday, September 27, 1996, Andre was interviewed by Mrs. Jane Apple from G. M. A. C. , a mortgage company. At the interview, she explained to him the responsib ilities of a loan officer, the position he had applied for. She also asked him questions about what he thought about the company. Mrs.Apple informing him that although the position only paid commisions. Mrs. Apple looked at Andre and said, ‘’You have the job if you want it. ’’ He tried to hard to contain his happiness. He told her he would accept her offer and thanked her for giving him an opportunity. On Monday, September 30, 1996, when he arrived at work, he was greeted and introduced to the staff members and shown around the office. Mrs. Apple told him to relax. Andre began to feel that he had accomplished his goal of becoming a career person with a good job.Everyone was very friendly and seemed happy to be employed at that company. What he enjoyed the most about this organization was the team style of leadership displayed by Mrs. Apple. On Tuesday, October 1, 1996, he had second interview with The Office Supply Store. He was interviewed by Mr. Smith, d istrict manager, and Maria Smith, human resources director. They were very pleasant and energetic and he got the impression that the work environment at The Office Supply Store was the same as at G. M. A. C.After the interview, he was told he had the position and would receive a letter in the mail telling him the information and the store where he would be working. He decided to accept the job offered from The Office Supply Store, because he wanted to move into management. Also at G. M. A. C. , his only income is commision, while at The Office Supply Store, he would have a steady salary. He also likes the close location to his home. The Office Supply Store would train him to manage his own store. On Wednesday, he returned to G. M. A. C. and informed Mrs.Apple that he had been made an offer by The Office Supply Store and he felt it would be a beter opportunity for him. She listened to him and sounded sincere when she informed him that she understood why he had come to his decision. E nding the conversation, she told him that if it didn’t work out at The Office Supply Store, he should call her and she would gladly give him another opportunity. After receiving the letter telling him where to report the work, he arrived at his training store. Andre was to meet with Mrs. Richards, the general manager, who was also his new boss.When he reached the general manager’s office, he introduced himself and informed her that he was sent to this store by district manager to begin his management training. Her face begin to flush. She just stared at him and ‘’Why are you here? You are supposed to be at the orientation meeting’’ she said sharply. He informed her that according to the letter he received from the district manager and gave it to her. She asked him to have a seat in the break area next to her office, while she straightened out the situation over the phone. He began to get angry at the nasty language she was using.He felt this showed a total lack of professionalism. The more he thought about his reception, the angier he became. He even thought about punching her in face or engaging her with some profanity of his own. In looking at possible options he had in this situation, his first option was definitely to punch her in the face, but he knew that would result in trouble with the police. Another option was just the walk out the door, but he took the attitude that he would overcome this and proceeded to convince himself that this was an isolated event.He felt this was the Standard ‘’grin and bear it’’ method of maintaining a job. After he had calmed down, he viewed the situation from a more practical perspective. He told himself that he should probably just start looking for a new job. He decided he should remain silent on this issue, because he had continuously heard people say throughout the years ‘’don’t rock the boat. ’’Finally, the last optio n he thought of was to talk with the district manager about his experience, but the district manager’s natural reaction would be to defend Mrs.Richard’s behaviour, and label him with an attitude problem. So he did nothing. Over the next few weeks, the general manager continued to display the same level of behaviour. Andre even tried to communicate with her as two mature adults. To his disappointment, he felt that she appeared uncaring and uncooperative. The problem which is emphasized in this topic can be explained with main components of attitudes and major job attitudes, responses to dissatisfaction, job rotation, fundamental attribution error, emotional intelligence, and Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory.

Essay on Romanticism and Shelleys Ode to the West Wind

Romanticism and Shelleys Ode to the West Wind M.H. Abrams wrote, The Romantic period was eminently an age obsessed with fact of violent change (Revolution 659). And Percy Shelley is often thought of as the quintessential Romantic poet (Appelbaum x). The Ode to the West Wind expresses perfectly the aims and views of the Romantic period. Shelleys poem expresses the yearning for Genius. In the Romantic era, it was common to associate genius with an attendant spirit or force of nature from which the genius came; the Romantics perceived the artist as a vessel through which the genius flows. For instance, in A Defence of Poetry, Shelley says that poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration, the†¦show more content†¦Be thou me, impetuous one!). A common Romantic notion was the idea that Imagination was the side of the mind that allowed a person to forge a link with someone or something. Another of the central ideas of the Romantic literary figures was the inherent value of the primitive and untrammeled (Revolution 657). Shelley fills the third section of Ode to the West Wind with images of innocence and serenity. Descriptions of azure moss and flowers, sea-blooms, and oozy woods dominate this part of the poem. The fifth section also expresses Shelleys belief that the quest for beauty is important. At the beginning of the fifth section, Shelley conjures the wind to make me thy lyre (Ode 815). The lyre is one of few instruments which existed in the seventeenth century which had taken the same form since ancient Greece. It is a symbol of art and beauty; it is also a frequent symbol for the artist being played by inspiration (Ode 815). What is perhaps most important is that Ode to the West Wind expresses the aspect of the Romantic movement which emphasized the search for individual definitions of morality rather than blindly accepting religious dogmas. As William Blake had his Marriage of Heaven and Hell, which emphasized the belief that traditional ideas of good and evil needed reconsidering, so Shelley believed that inShow MoreRelatedThe Wind As A Powerful Force Of Nature By Percy Bysshe Shelley1502 Words   |  7 PagesThe wind is undoubtedly one of the most powerful forces known to man. It can amount to numerous spectacular, sometimes even terrifying things which man comes to envy. In the Romantic poem Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley, this idea of wind as a powerful force of nature portrays itself as a link to the speaker’s emotions as well as his yearnings. The speaker implores the abilities of the West Wind as a comparison to his poetry, linking the natural world with the world inside of a poet’sRead MoreThe Byronic Hero And Satire1448 Words   |  6 Pageson the idea of negative romanticism, which sought to reject the fixed views of the previous era. Negative romanticism is negative, critical, cynical, and anti-Platonism. Byron’s negative romanticism looked to the past and was manifested in the use of the Byronic hero and satire. In contrast, Shelley wrote his poetry based on the idea of positive romanticism, which tried to find something to build up what Byron tore down through his negative romanticism. Positive romanticism focused on a new orientationRead MoreEssay about Romanticism1678 Words   |  7 PagesRomanticism, Romanticism, in a way, was a reaction against rigid Classicism, Rationalism, and Deism of the eighteenth century. Strongest in application between 1800 and 1850, the Romantic Movement differed from country to country and from romanticist to romanticist. Because it emphasized change it was an atmosphere in which events occurred and came to affect not only the way humans thought and expressed them, but also the way they lived socially and politically (Abrams, M.H. Pg. 13). â€Å"RomanticismRead MoreSimilarities and Dissimilarities Between Shelley and Keats6975 Words   |  28 Pagesoften write about nature in itself, Shelley tends to invoke nature as a sort of supreme metaphor for beauty, creativity, and expression. This means that most of Shelleys poems about art rely on metaphors of nature as their means of expression: the West Wind in Ode to the West Wind becomes a symbol of the poetic faculty spreading Shelleys words like leaves among mankind, and the skylark in To a Skylark bec omes a symbol of the purest, most joyful, and most inspired creative impulse. The skylarkRead MoreTintern Abbey, Frost at Midnight and Ode to the West Wind Essay2056 Words   |  9 PagesRomanticism was a revolutionary movement which began in English Literature (mainly poetry) around the Eighteenth Century in Western Europe and gained height during the times of the Industrial Revolution. Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Coleridge and Blake were regarded as the ‘Big Six’ of Romanticism. In ‘Tintern Abbey’ by William Wordsworth, ‘Frost at Midnight’ by Samuel Coleridge and ‘ Ode to the West Wind’ by Percy Shelley, we see clearly that nature is the central trigger for the poet’s imaginationRead MoreImpact Of The French Revolution On The West Wind By Percy Bysshe Shelley1520 Words   |  7 PagesThe impact of the French Revolution brought profound change to 18th century Britain. The political practices of the Enlightenment gave way to fresh concepts that transformed all aspects of society, including the arts. Romanticism was born and through it the majestic beauty of nature and her climatic force, influenced a new perception of philosophical and poetic thought. Romantic writers who existed in the wake of the pan-European movement, found a new awareness in nature and viewed it as a sublimeRead MoreEssay about British Romanticism1831 Words   |  8 Pageshimself asking, What is beautiful? Many would point to nature when prompted with such a question; however, few realize that a similar question was posed and a similar answer given back in Romantic Great Britain, but to a whole new degree. British Romanticism was a reaction against technology as well as a cry to turn back to the beauty of nature, and its advocating troops held no more than a pen and paper in hand (Lorcher). Authors of the Romantic era used literature to open the eyes of a society boggedRead MoreWhich Way Does The Wind Blow?1676 Word s   |  7 PagesWhich Way Does the Wind Blow? The Aeolian harp in Coleridge and Shelley The Aeolian harp is a simple instrument that sounds music according to the wind. Its music depends primarily on the direction, speed, and strength of the wind, but there isn’t much to the harp other than that. Despite being just a simple instrument with a simple concept, it still manages to make an appearance in many Romantic poems, including the poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Percy Bysshe Shelley. It’s natural that theRead MoreChanging Characteristics of Poetry from Modern to Romantics3272 Words   |  14 Pagesthe first romantic age in English literature. The romantic in ordinary life is an escape from its monotonous routine, its conventionality and custom. The three impulses of the romantic imagination, passion for nature, yearning for the past. The Romanticism was nothing but an extension to the field of literature of man’s unquenchable thirst for beauty that lies in the strange, the extraordinary, the remote combination of the strange and beauty cons titutes the romantic in literature. Some of the greatestRead MoreEssay on The Gothic Genre and What it Entails6177 Words   |  25 Pagesleast in the bulk of critical writing (this is the view of most contemporary historical overviews e.g.: Sage, Botting, Kilgour). Many critics writing at the time of the Romantic Gothic (i.e: Gothic written during the arbitrary period of Romanticism) considered such novels to be sensationalist, trashy and completely expurgated of any of the higher qualities of mind (Peacock quoted in Sage, 11). I think this is an unfair judgement on gothic writing during the romantic