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Post by jillian on Sept 24, 2015 22:57:30 GMT
The mood in the "A & P" is quite different than a lot of stories. In the "A & P", we see through a male teenager's eyes and it made me feel really uncomfortable. The mood is crass, perverted, and creepy. First of all, Sam is watching these girls the whole time, almost stalking them, which already gives the whole story a really weird vibe. He can't keep his eyes off of them, which is really creepy. Throughout the story I was just thinking, "hey, maybe you should just look away and get back to work instead of stare like a creepy stalker man". From the description alone, knowing that he was probably eyeing them up and down just gives the mood a really gross feel. Also, the word choice in the story gives it a really uncomfortable mood. The narrator chooses the word 'nubble' to describe one of the girl's bathing suit (which I looked up and it means a small lump or knob). It just really confused me. The connotation I get from nubble is that it is a weird word and it makes me think of goosebumps and chicken pox. Also, when he added the part where his coworker said, "Oh Daddy, I feel so faint" I got so uncomfortable I put the packet down and walked away for a bit because I felt so grossed out. The descriptions alone are enough to make me want to puke. The description of the girl: "with the straps pushed off, there was nothing between the top of the suit and the top of her head except just her, this clean bare plane on the top of her chest down from the shoulder bones like a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light. I mean, it was more than pretty" contributes to the mood by giving it more than enough perversion. This clearly shows that this guy was looking at this girl in a more than friendly glance. He was ogling her. He was looking at her chest, and he liked the way her straps weren't on her shoulders. The mood is so gross. In some ways, this guy is taking away this girls innocence by describing her in such a raunchy way. Also, the simile is just really weird. It really adds to the crass mood. Who compares someone's chest to a dented piece of metal? Was this kid trying to be poetic? If so, he failed. Also, the fact that he quit his job in order to look like a "hero" really added to the crassness of the mood. Seriously, who does that? Did he really think that they would find his "boldness" to "stand up" to his manager attractive? If I were in their place, (I wouldn't be walking around in a grocery store in my bathing suit) I would've probably given him a weird look and then run out because I would be kind of weirded out. Overall, the character descriptions, word choice, and dialogue gave the story a really crass, perverted, and creepy mood. I felt so uncomfortable throughout the whole story. I really hope that this isn't how all guys really think about girls in their head.
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kchen
New Member
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Post by kchen on Sept 25, 2015 1:17:07 GMT
I completely agree that the mood in “A & P” was uncomfortable, especially because it was in first person point of view. The reader is forced to hear his innermost thoughts as he leers at the girls, and it is not just him. The three named men in the story, Sammy, Stokesie, and Lengel, all ogle at them. Stokesie says, “Oh Daddy… I feel so faint”, even though it later mentions that he is married. Sammy mentions that Lengel’s eyes wander while he addresses the girls. Even McMahon glances at them after they walk away from him. It reinforces the uncomfortable atmosphere because everyone, from nineteen year-old Sammy to old McMahon, is leering at these girls. In the end, Sammy basically throws away his job to impress the girls, but they are already gone. His desperate actions almost made me feel sorry for him, but only almost. While the point of view makes the reader privy to Sammy’s internal thoughts and emotions, I am not sure if I wanted to know them, but maybe that was the author’s intention.
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Post by Maddy on Sept 25, 2015 1:37:11 GMT
This is a really interesting viewpoint Jillian, and one I back up 100 percent. I think that especially reading this as a teenage girl, it is extra potent because almost every teenage girl has had that experience where you realize a boy or a man is looking at you in an uncomfortable way and maybe even a sexual way? I am not a teenage boy obviously so I am working with hypotheticals here, but I would think that a teenage boy reading this would feel uncomfortable in a different way. Maybe it would make him stop and think "Do I do this? If so, how does it make the girls feel?" I mean you could chalk this story up to "boys will be boys" but I think it goes further than that and hopefully makes boys reading it examine their behavior a little bit and realize that eyeing girls the way the boy in the story doees "Queenie" and the other two girls is really creepy, even if they are in swim suits. And I also agree that a lot of the language used was suuuper weird. Like the way he calls one girl chunky (like really dude) and the way he talks about the "bra" on her swimsuit. I also really hate the part where he says, "You never know for sure how girls' minds work (do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glassjar?)." This sentence is where I realized just how much this boy was objectifying the girls. He talks in such great detail about their bodies and then when it gets time to talk about their minds he just says "do girls even think?" I mean what is that about, all people think, girls are people, so girls think. Come on.
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Post by maddysmith on Sept 25, 2015 1:53:50 GMT
that accidentally posted as a guest but it's Maddy Smith
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sko
New Member
Posts: 14
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Post by sko on Sept 25, 2015 1:56:30 GMT
I agree that the mood was creepy and uncomfortable, especially how Sammy takes in every little detail about the girls. However, I think that his "creepiness" gives a sense of reality.
I also thought that it was strange and irrational for Sammy to just throw his job away just for the girls. However, pertaining to the mood (and tone), I thought that the uncomfortable mood shifted in the last part where Sammy describes Lengel as, "...very patient and old and gray...face was dark gray and his back stiff...", and he realizes "...how hard the wold was going to be...". It stays realistic - if not even more realistic with the realization of the consequences of his actions.
I thought that Sammy's actions also portrayed him as some sort of tragic hero, where he stands up for the girls, but no one sees him do this. When I reexamined this part of the story, I thought that maybe Sammy's actions weren't completely influenced by the girls. There is a (small) possibility that Sammy quits partially because of his principles rather than to impress the girls. He says in his thoughts, "Policy is what the kingpins want. What the others want is juvenile delinquency." It almost sounds a bit defiant and bitter. After the girls leave, Lengel gives him a second chance, but Sammy sticks of his original actions, suggesting that there is another motivation for his actions.
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