Assignment
Setting: Updike, "A&P"; Kincaid, "Girl"; Moody, "Boys'
REQUIRED TEXT: Charters, The Story and Its Writer, compact 9th ed.
"A&P"
1. Who's the protagonist, and who's the antagonist?
2. What do we know about Sammy, about his character and background?
3. What is Sammy's image of himself?
4. How is Stoksiea foil for Sammy?
5. What about the three girls appeals to Sammy?
6. What's important about the bathing suits?Would the significance of the bathing suits change with a different setting-say, Hawaii instead of Boston?
7. Do you think the girls meant to cause trouble by coming to the store in bathing suits?
8. What is the central conflict? Where is the climax-the moment when the conflict is at its height?
9. What is Sammy's apparent motivation for quitting his job? What's his real motivation?
10. How aware is Sammy of his motives for quitting? Is it "in character" for him to quit? Does anything lead you to expect Sammy to make some gesture of sympathy for the three girls?
11. Is Sammy right in thinking the world will be a harder place for him hereafter? If it is harder, will this be a gain or a loss for him?
Kincaid, "Girl"
1. Who is the speaker? To whom is she speaking?
2. What are the major subjects in this litany of advice?
3. The title of the story is "Girl," yet the girl seems to have only two lines of her own, one a protest and the other a question. Why might Kincaid have decided to call the story "Girl" rather than "Mother," or "Woman," or "Advice," or "Memory"?
4. What does the title suggest?
5. What is the effect of fairly precise household rules alternating with comments such as "on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming"? String together the lines that admonish the girl as potential slut. What connection is there between the subjects the mother is speaking of and the idea of being a slut? Why does it keep popping up from the most innocuous of items?
6. What does this slut refrain make us think of the daughter? What does it make us think of the mother? How do the mother's instructions reveal the mother's character?
7. In what ways do these characterizations constitute a plot? What is the conflict that the speaker is trying to resolve? How does the speaker's last question clarify that conflict?
8. In what sense is this narrative an extended definition of the title-i.e., what a proper girl should be? As you assess these instructions, which ones seem important and which ones seem trivial. In what ways do the "girl's" objections reveal the archetypal tension between mothers and daughters
9. How does this story relate to "A & P"?
Moody, "Boys"
1. How would you describe the structure of this story?
2. Is the plot traditional: conflict, rising tension, climax, resolution? Who might be the protagonist, who the antagonist?
3. At what point do the twins start to distinguish themselves from one another? Can you describe the basic difference between the two?
4. What happens in the story? Try to pinpoint each moment of change. Does the story have a conventional plot?
5. How does this story compare and contrast with Jamaica Kinkaid's "Girl"?