A&P

In John Updike's story A&P he portrays the life of a typical teenage boy. As a group of very attractive girls walks into the grocery store Sammy works at he can't help but watch and wonder as they walk around. He starts to fixate on everything about the leader who he calls "Queenie". He goes into such detail as "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 of the top of her chest down from her shoulder bones like a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light. I mean it was more than pretty" (p.600). He clearly feels something for this young girl who came in wearing nothing but a skimpy bathing suit. What guy wouldn't notice this? What person wouldn't notice this? Queenie even caused the lady's in the store to turn heads, although for different reasons. In these women's eyes no girl should come into a store dressed like that, its not proper and looked down upon. One older lady did get in Sammy's way for a few minutes. As she was checking out, Sammy scanned an item twice, being so distracted and all, the lady didn't hesitate to jump all over him for that one. Not only did Sammy judge the pretty young girls, he was judging this older woman. claiming she had been waiting the past fifty years just to catch a mistake at the cash register. he went to say how old ladies have nothing better to do. Luckily for Sammy the girls chose his lane to go through. This excited him and as he was trying to get the girls items scanned the manager came over. Lengal, the manager who is much older and much more mature, refers to a store policy as to how the girls are dressed and that it is inappropriate. Sammy saw that this embarrassed the girls and with a last attempt to make a good impression he, very loudly, announces that he quit his job because of how Lengal embarrassed them like that. As he was leaving the store to see how appreciative the girls were he saw that they were gone. he was left job-less alone in a parking lot. this shows the kind of power women have over men and there actions. A pretty half naked girl walks into a store and manages to get a guy to quit for her. Its almost sad that somebody would where such skimpy clothes just to get some attention but its even worse that somebody would quit there job in the hopes of being a "hero".
Clearly Updike doesn't think to much of women. He sees them as a piece of meat and nothing else.

Orientation

Let's first take a tour of the kitchen. It may be small but very functional, there's the cook's station, salad station, freezer, and dishwashing area. Waitresses pretty much do whatever they want and go wherever they want, especially Mallory, she expects you to help her constantly but won't give you the time of day. She's been divorced four times, the last three lasted less than a year, she doesn't think we know so don't mention it. If your doing dishes you can just spray them down and put them in the tray unless the boss is here, Valerie expects you to hand wash each dish and then out them in the dishwasher. It seems like a ridiculous task but that's what she expects. You have to buy your own shirts from the office, of course we use lots of bleach around here so your almost guaranteed to get a stain which means you'll be buying a new shirt almost each week. Employee use the freezer as there personal air conditioner and if you want something to drink, put money in the jar or just take it there aren't cameras around the fountain drinks. Hygiene is about as important around here as a basketball is to a volleyball game. Unless the health inspector is scheduled to come it pretty much a free-for-all, eat a cup of soup or a salad nobody notices. Gloves are suppose to be worn when handling a customers food they are located under the salad bench and the extra ones are in the storage closet over there. Breaks are allowed every four hours but if its slow and your a smoker your allowed to be outside whenever you want. If you don't smoke you'll be the one running the restaurant. Here, first one is on me. we have a bar attached to the restaurant if you need a drink for a customer, or yourself, talk to Wyatt the bartender but don't get it yourself. Valerie tends to get snockered during the day and drive home once she has slept it off in the office. Ok you'll learn how to handle the computer and money stuff your second day but I'll show you where its located and give you your server number toady, don't lose it, if you do, don't bother coming tomorrow. When filling drinks make sure there is much more ice than soda, tea, or lemonade! Oh and if you can't find the cooks its probably because they are out back doing a drug deal, they bring a lot of our late night customers. If you don't have any questions we can get you started on training just follow me around and clean up my messes until your day is up.

Southern Grotesque

The obvious grotesque character would be the grandmother. In the beginning you almost feel bad for her because when she asks or suggests to do something like go somewhere new the family shrugs it off and completely ignore her but throughout the story the reader begins to realize why she is like this. Without blinking an eye the grandmother is able to come up with lie after lie to manipulate the family into doing what she wants. Not only do they take the road trip she wants but she convinces the kids that there is a special treasure hidden in a house she desperately wants to visit. The grandmother gets the children so worked up that they are begging there parents to take them. Finally Bailey gives in and takes them down this dirt road towards the house when the grandma realizes she is wrong and the house is in a different state. When she remembers this, it startles her and she kicks her bag that has a cat she snuck in the car with her. The cat gets scared and jumps out of the bag, onto bailey, causing the car to crash and roll.
After the car crashes they see somebody coming and wave it down. unfortunately the people in it are murderers on the loose, one is called the misfit. Of course the grandmother recognizes him and yells out "you're the Misfit" and this upsets everybody. Eventually the whole family gets shot, the grandmother deceives till the end. While begging for her life she uses Jesus to try to sway him and as a last measure she claims that she recognizes him as her son. The misfit ends with "she could have been a good woman if somebody had been around to shoot her every minute of her life."
To add to the grotesqueness of the story, there are obvious racist spots, specifically coming from the grandma when she talks about a plantation that used to be in a cotton field and the graves from the workers, she jokes about this story. She also wears a hat and flowers which is a very old southern style it was a way of showing the hierarchy of a person's wealth. also the small things like the dirt road, little café on the side of the road, and long driveways lined with trees.

The Lottery

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" concerns itself with the concept that it can be acceptable to require the individual to sacrifice for the greater good. It amazes me that something so horrible can be a tradition is a community. Every year this Lottery occurs, people prepare for it by gathering stones and putting them in piles. There must be a reason it started, maybe population control or some other reason. It doesn't seem like stoning one person a year is very good population control seeing as how the reading talks about how much bigger the community has gotten. It might have started as a punishment that just gradually became a thing for some ridiculous reason. For whatever the reason, this happens each year and it's ok with the people, until they are the one chosen. as Tessie said "it's not fair" but the others were already starting to crowd her as soon as they realized it was her. They wanted to "get it over with" or get it done so they could get back to work. Some women seemed a little merciful when they said, "it seems like we just did one last week". Regardless of the reason the community obviously feels that this is important otherwise they would have done away with this already.