Epiphany Vs Araby - 833 Words

With the materialistic world we live in today where everyone is stuck in their own head is it possible for true hears to exist in the modern age? Two short fiction novels that discuss the quest, epiphanies, and heroes of the modern age are â€Å"AP† by John Updike and â€Å"Araby† by James Joyce. The story â€Å"AP† by John Updike is about an eighteen year old boy named Sammy who works at the AP and finds an attraction to three girls who repeatedly walk into the AP in bathing suits, after the girls are embarrassed by the manager Sammy does the heroic act of quitting in honor of the three girls. The short story â€Å"Araby† by James Joyce is about a boy who take on the quest of going to a bazaar called Araby and buying his crush a gift in as an act of†¦show more content†¦This shows that John Updike does believe that modern age heroes can exist but their acts often go unnoticed and being a hero or doing heroic acts will not result in rewards and pr aise like in many other stories. In â€Å"Araby† by James Joyce the narrator takes on the quest of going to a bazaar to retrieve a gift for the girl he has feelings for to show his love for her, in his quest he experiences obstacles such as lack of money, time, and transportation and in the end he fails in getting a gift for his crush leading to his epiphany. In the story it states â€Å"Gazing up at the darkness I was myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.† This shows his epiphany of realizing that the world if full of vanity and is materialistic which is what drove him to wanting to buy his crush a gift instead of simply expressing his feelings to her by talking to her. He now sees that theres no one to blame but himself for not letting the girl know how he feels. Despite him failing his quest of getting her the gift he did complete a quest having his realization that he was driven by vanity like many others in t he world. AccordingShow MoreRelatedEssay on AP vs. Araby692 Words   |  3 PagesAP vs. Araby John Updike’s AP and James Joyce’s Araby are very similar yet very different in many ways. Each short story has a normal kid with an obsession over a girl. The big difference between Sammy in AP and Jimmy in Araby is just that they were raised differently and have different values. The way Jimmy talks about his fantasy girl is on a more religious level while Sammy in other words is kind of impolite about how he describes the three girls that walk into the market. From the narrator’sRead More Analyses of Short Stories Essay examples4756 Words   |  20 Pagesthat they are good, religious people and that Goodman is making up everyone being evil in his head. I found an essay by Alexa Carlson that described the symbolism in light vs. dark, forest vs. town, nature vs. human, and fantasy vs. reality. In her paper, Essay #1: Young Goodman Brown, she states that â€Å"†¦fantasy vs. reality are employed to reinforce the idea that good and evil have been set up as strict categories into which no one, not even the religious figures of the community, fit neatly