Desire—The Viper in your mind
Desire—The Viper in your mind
By reading the short stories” A&P” and “The Lottery Ticker”, it is evident that both of them talk about the power and the negative effect of desire. In some situations, desire or emotional thoughts may impair people’s judgments, and even lead to some negative consequences. The character development in both stories highlights the power of desire and how desire makes people impetuous, They get influenced by the strong feeling deep down inside, For instance, in the story “A&P” , the main character Sammy is just a lazy and cowardly boy who complains about everything inside his mind. He rings up the purchase by mistake and “ the customer starts to give me hell ” (Updike, P134) He dislikes his job and describes the customer like“She’s one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty…” （Updike, P134）He has rebellious thoughts but he dose not dare to speak it out loud. All the things he can do is "…got her leather smoothed and her goodies into a bag” ( Updike, P135 ) For him, life in the A&P store is boring and also vulgar. “It’s not as if we’re on the Cape; we’re north of Boston and there’s people in this town haven’t see the ocean for twenty years.” The ocean here represents the interesting life for Sammy. He is not satisfied until the girls show up. When he saw the Queenie his desire starts to work. When the Queenie takes out the money “out of the hollow at the center of her nibbled pink top” (Updike, P136) Sammy thinks it is cute but actually, it is a kind of rude to not wear like that in the store. Sammy was on the right track even he does not like it. He did not suppose to do anything when his boss blames the girls. But he falls into a desire---being a hero in front of them. This desire leads him to make a hasty decision without careful considerations---to quit his job. The girls are wrong but Sammy cannot judge them in the right way due to his desire, this only makes his life become more difficult. He realizes it is wrong
By reading the short stories” A&P” and “The Lottery Ticker”, it is evident that both of them talk about the power and the negative effect of desire. In some situations, desire or emotional thoughts may impair people’s judgments, and even lead to some negative consequences. The character development in both stories highlights the power of desire and how desire makes people impetuous, They get influenced by the strong feeling deep down inside, For instance, in the story “A&P” , the main character Sammy is just a lazy and cowardly boy who complains about everything inside his mind. He rings up the purchase by mistake and “ the customer starts to give me hell ” (Updike, P134) He dislikes his job and describes the customer like“She’s one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty…” （Updike, P134）He has rebellious thoughts but he dose not dare to speak it out loud. All the things he can do is "…got her leather smoothed and her goodies into a bag” ( Updike, P135 ) For him, life in the A&P store is boring and also vulgar. “It’s not as if we’re on the Cape; we’re north of Boston and there’s people in this town haven’t see the ocean for twenty years.” The ocean here represents the interesting life for Sammy. He is not satisfied until the girls show up. When he saw the Queenie his desire starts to work. When the Queenie takes out the money “out of the hollow at the center of her nibbled pink top” (Updike, P136) Sammy thinks it is cute but actually, it is a kind of rude to not wear like that in the store. Sammy was on the right track even he does not like it. He did not suppose to do anything when his boss blames the girls. But he falls into a desire---being a hero in front of them. This desire leads him to make a hasty decision without careful considerations---to quit his job. The girls are wrong but Sammy cannot judge them in the right way due to his desire, this only makes his life become more difficult. He realizes it is wrong