Compare and Contast Essay: John Updike’s “A&P”

Langston Hughes and John Updike are very different writers. They are from very different backgrounds; Langston Hughes’ mother couldn’t make enough money to pay for rent, so they had to live with Langston’s grandmother. John Updike was not rich, but his family lived in their own home when he was young. Updike was born in the North and wrote about where he lived; Hughes was born in Missouri and wrote about wherever he wanted to. Where authors are born and raised has a big effect on the stories they write and the characters they create. The characters in John Updike’s “A and P” were complete opposites of the characters in Langston Hughes’ “Thank You M’am”

When you take the woman from “Thank You M’am” and the Queen from “A and P” you get complete opposite characters. In the short story, “Thank You M’am”, Langston Hughes describes the setting as a small town at night. Where there is a large woman walking home with a large purse, and he states “she has everything in it but a hammer and nails”. After the boy tries to steal her purse, he falls and the woman catches him and “shakes him until his teeth rattle”. This is saying that this woman has not been babied her whole life, she has to do things for herself and she is very independent. She is obviously strong from hard work, to be shaking that boy around like that with one hand. Then once she starts talking, Hughes makes it a point for her to be obviously talking with a southern sort of draw. In the story, it never states that she is black but you can make an immediate assumption of that just by the way she talks. She speaks as if she doesn’t have very much education, or she just chooses to speak that way, but she says she works in a hotel beauty shop, which doesn’t require a whole lot of education to work there. She is obviously not rich either when her home is described. She lives with other people, and in the last paragraph, it says she has a barren stoop which indicates the house isn’t the best in the world. There is one thing about her that is different; she is very generous to the little boy. It may be because she, in her own way, claims she has done things like what the boy has just done, but she isn’t rich and she feeds this child and gives him ten dollars. At the time ten dollars is not a small amount of money, but she just gives it to this boy whom she just meet as he was trying to rob her.

The Queen girl in the story “A and P” is obviously a completely different character than the woman from “Thank You M’am”. First of all, just the physical differences are astounding, the woman is large and probably 30-40 years old and works hard for her money. The Queen is a beautiful, thin, young girl probably about 19, the age of the cashier, and she never worked a day in her life. She is very gentle and walks slowly and daintily, she is in no rush, and she is enjoying a day at the beach. Mrs. Washington Jones on the other hand, seems like she is in a rush to go home, carries a huge purse, and shakes around a little child. The Queen is not carrying anything, she’s not even wearing shoes, and this girl must come from at least a semi-wealthy family, because she acts as if she owns the place. She walks into a grocery store with her straps off of her bathing suit, and no shoes on, and she starts strolling around the store. She is in no rush because she walks through about every aisle and then stops and asks the butcher where to go. This girl is the opposite of the woman in “Thank You M’am” in almost every way possible.

The boy in "Thank you Ma'm" is a young kid, who must be skinny because he falls to the ground when he tries to steal the purse, and he also has a very dirty face. Also, nowhere is this story does it say if the boy is black or not, but he could go either way. Judging just from Langston’s work I would say this boy is black because all the characters Hughes makes are black, unless they are the evil character in the story. Also, you can assume the boy is black because the woman relates to him very well, and she basically says she used to be in his position. She wouldn’t say that to him if he was a little dirty-faced white boy. Despite being homeless, or parentless, the boy has very good manners. He always says ma’m to her and treats her with respect. It could be because he is trying to win back her trust as it says in the story or he could’ve been raised that way and his parents just work all the time that’s why the aren’t home.

The clerk, Sammy from “A and P”, is a teenager who has been working at this store for probably a year or more. He has a bow tie on and an apron with his name stitched on it and he knows everyone in the store. He seems like the stereotypical middle class boy, because the shop owner knows his parents, so they are still together and he still lives with them, at least that’s how it seems. He is very unlike the boy because, physically, he is older and Caucasian. Also, Sammy lives with his parents and is a middle class citizen. The boy doesn’t know where his parents are, it doesn’t even say he has parents. Sammy can just go home and eat dinner with his family, when the boy has to steal food or steal money to buy food for his family.

In conclusion, these characters from either story are complete opposites of each other. If it’s race, work ethic, social status, education, or morals, these characters have very little, if anything in common.