A

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A P

• The Age of Innocence or Ignorance
• Language and Point of View

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Housekeeping

• 1. play rehearsal 12/10 (Wed) noon and advisor
  time
• 2. e-text vs. textbook
• 3. group advisor
• Group 1-4 Kate
• Group 5-8 Julia
• Group 9-12 Andrew
• Our email address introlit2014_at_gmail.com

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Outline

• Q A General Introduction
• Structure ? Queenie in grace, disgraced, and the
  hero fights back to no avail.
• Language and Style ? contrasting two kinds of
  people
• Discussion
• Points of View
• Ending
• The Swimming Suit Issue Sammy vs. the Other
  Characters
• Setting Theme

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AP

• General Introduction

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John Updike AP

• Updike on AP

• John Updike (19322009)

• Originally he had 3 more pages describing Sams
  going up to the beach to find the girls, but
  without success
• A filmic adaptation, followed by an interview

Norton
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AP Characters

• Sammy
• Lengel, Stokesie, McMahon (at the meat counter)
• 3 girls (par 2)
• The First Friend (Plaid)
• The Second Friend (Big Goony Goony)
• Queenie
• Customers

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Structure Rescuing the Queen

• Beginning In media res in the middle of a
  sequence of an event or a story.
• Long description of the three girls with a focus
  on Queenie, juxtaposed with short descriptions of
  the other customers.
• Middle Now here comes the sad part of the
  story (par 11)
• confrontation between the girls and Lengel
• Between Lengel and Sammy
• Ending out of the supermarket.

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AP Structure

• In medias res (Latin "in the midst of things")

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QA Your Responses

• Why did Stokesie call the author "Daddy"? (Since
  Stokesie was older than him.)

"Oh Daddy," Stokesie said beside me. "I feel so faint. (7)
"Darling," I said. "Hold me tight." Stokesie's married, with two babies chalked up on his fuselage already, but as far as I can tell that's the only difference. He's twenty-two, and I was nineteen this April. (8)
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Sammys Language Your Choice

• (team 8!)
• 1.Sammy's os - a good tan and a sweet broad
  soft-looking can with those two crescents of
  white just under it. Bright green and the seams
  on the bra.
• 2.description of Queenie - Sammy thinks the most
  beautiful girl is untouchable , so he nicknames
  her "Queenie", which refers as "Queen. For
  example, she held her head so high her
  neck,......but I (Sammy) doesn't mind. The
  longer her neck is ,the more of her there is.
  (par 4)

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Sammys Language Your Choice

• 3.argument with the boss - It begins with Sammy
  saying "I quit !" Just because the girls are
  embarrassed by the boss. It shows that Sammy is
  like other teenagers, who always do something
  without thinking twice. However a sudden impulse
  made Sammy quit his job, neglecting what the boss
  says and what his parents' feeling. In the end,
  it turned out that Sammy does regret when he
  turns back, seeing his boss ringing up, with a
  dark gray face standing alone.

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Sammys Language (1)

1. Colloquial omission, rep, coined words, run-on S
   and misplaced modifier pars 13, 52 first
   sentences.)
2. Concrete with vivid details and things he is
   familiar with (e.g. games, womens bodily
   parts--breasts and bottoms, supermarket)
3. Vivid and imaginative e.g. the girls voice (par
   14), the sound of the cash register (par 21).

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Sammys Language (2)

• 4. Stereotyping and exaggerative Tends to divide
  up people into two groups--one he likes, and one
  he dislikesand exaggerates their differences.
  (e.g. Sheep vs. Queen)
• e.g. You could see them the other customers,
  when Queenie's white shoulders dawned on them,
  kind of jerk, or hop, or hiccup, but their eyes
  snapped back to their own baskets and on they
  pushed. (par 5)
• Other descriptions of the customers (par 12, 30)
• e.g. Queenie vs. the dynamites

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Example of Sammys Language (3)Queenie

• Queenie-- sex queenly manners
• The way she walks square-shouldered and
  long-necked.
• the oaky hair that the sun and salt had
  bleached.
• She had on a kind of dirty-pinkbeige maybe, I
  don't knowbathing suit with a little nubble all
  over it and, what got me, the straps were down
• shining rim top of her chest like a dented
  sheet of metal tilted in the light
• The bill from the girls cleavage from between
  the two smoothest scoops of vanilla I had ever
  known...."

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Summary and Preview Point of View

• Participant (or first-person) point of view
• --1) as protagonist e.g. A P, Boys and
  Girls Araby
• -- 2) as witness
• (we A Rose for Emily) (Issuereliable nor
  not)
• Non-participant (or third-person) point of view.
  
• --1) neutral omniscience objective
• --2) editorial omniscience (with judgment)
• --3) selective omniscience -- e.g. 20/20
• ? Enter the mind or not ? stream of
  consciousness (later)

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Discussion Questions

• Group 1, 5, 9- Point of View Sammys vs.
  Queenies or Lengels (description or performance
  of dialogue)
• Group 2, 6, 10- Ending What do we make of it?
  Would you quit the job if you were in Sams
  position? Which ending do you prefer?
• Group 3, 7, 11- Swimming Suit or not The Girls,
  Sammys, Lengels, Stoksies and the Other
  Customers Points of View (description or
  performance)
• Group 4, 8. 12- Setting Theme (analysis or
  re-creation)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vOJImoQJsgEs

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Lets Take a Break!!!

• And start our group discussion 1016- 1106
• Come back to this classroom at 1116 sharp!

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Period 2 Discussion Time 1010-1100
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• 2-groups (1,2, 7,8) presentation, (9, 10, 3, 4)
  practice raising questions
• 3rd hour (5. 6. 11, 12) present (9, 10, 3, 4)
  ask questions

Question Group no. Group no. Group no.
1 1 5 9
2 2 6 10
3 3 7 11
4 4 8 12
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Point of View Related Issues

• the I-narrator is not the author
• E.g. The author described the woman as a
  "witch". This analogy not only described her
  appearance, but also her personality. She likes
  to pick on others, and Sammy was the victim this
  time.
• Sense of Immediacy, sympathy induced by
  first-person point of view? ? A P
• Objectivity, human littleness? suggested by
  third-person point of view? 20/20?
• Only one point of view in telling a story?
• No. The change of point of view or tone means a
  lot.

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The Character (1)Sammy Queenie

• Is he a sexist?
• Attentive to sexual details and judgmental
  (Queenie and Plaid and Big Tall Goony-Goony (not
  that as raw material she was so bad), )
• About the girls minds 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 glass jar?)
• Wants to play hero, but he is not and cannot be
  one.
• His move futile he is self-centered, but he is
  indeed courageous.
• How about Queenie?

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The Queen Is she really queenly?

• Seemingly proud and self-assured
• slow-motioned and a bit exaggerated in her walk
  
• Holds her head tall
• In response to Lengel
• Her voice when speaking to Lengel (par. 14)
• Feeble attempt at defending herself Were
  decent. (par 18)
• Her family background, different from Sammys

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Class Differences between Q S

• Herring snacks
• Cocktail Drink with olive

• Lemonade and Schlitz (beer)
• Glasses with cartoon figures

Par. 14
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Sammys Point of View of the Sheep

• The middle-aged customer --"about fifty," and a
  "witch" of the sort he's learned once flourished
  in nearby Salem with"rouge on her cheekbones and
  no eyebrows" but nothing else that might stir him
  in the direction of sympathy. (par 1)
• I bet you could set off dynamite in an AP and
  the people would by and large keep reaching and
  checking oatmeal off their lists and muttering .
  . .(par 5)
• "house slaves in pin curlers (par 5)
• "old party in baggy gray pants who stumbles up
  to his checkout lane with four giant cans of
  pineapple juice" (par 12)
• "women with six children and varicose veins
  mapping their legs." (par 10)
• "like scared pigs in a chute (par 30)
• ? Is Sammy a reliable narrator?

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Ending (1) What Happens?

• "You'll feel this regret for the rest of your
  life," Lengel says, and I know that's true, too.
• The girls gone
• Sammys action I just saunter into the electric
  eye in my white shirt that my mother ironed the
  night before, and the door heaves itself open,
  and outside the sunshine is skating around on the
  asphalt.
• Sammys feeling His face was dark gray and his
  back stiff, as if he'd just had an injection of
  iron, and my stomach kind of fell as I felt how
  hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.

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Ending (2) What Happens?

• After Sammy quits, he goes out to the parking lot
  and sees not the girls, but some young married
  screaming with her children about some candy they
  didnt get.
• What do you think about the ending? Has Sammy
  achieved anything? Or arrived at some type of
  awareness of his future prospect?

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Swimming Suit Issue

1. Social Propriety Respecting local customs and
   manners
2. Avoiding confrontation
3. Swimming suits symbolic meaning freedom,
   leisure, sexuality

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Putting Sammy in his Position

• Analyzing
• his Point of View (vs. the Others) and
• his Social Position (in the Setting)

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Sammy in Context (1) the Other Characters (2)
Stokesie, McMahon and Lengel.

• Stokesie
• "Oh Daddy," Stokesie said beside me. "I feel so
  faint." "Darling," I said. "Hold me tight."
  Stokesie's married, with two babies chalked up on
  his fuselage already, but as far as I can tell
  that's the only difference. . . .wants to be a
  manager.
• old McMahonpatting his mouth and looking after
  them sizing up their joints. Poor kids, I began
  to feel sorry for them, they couldn't help it.
• Lengel patient and old and gray
• ? more practical or less polite in their stare at
  the girls.
• How would they look at Sammy?
• How about the shoppers?

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Sammy in Context (2) Setting Imagery ?
Symbolic Meanings?

• Supermarket fluorescent light (vs. sunlight),
  checkerboard green-and-cream rubber-tile
  floor.(par 6)
• A lot of merchandize e.g. a pyramid of Diet
  Delight peaches, Caribbean Six or Tony Martin
  Sings, plastic toys, etc..
• Images of the mundane, the business world and
  capitalism ? which places people, as consumers
  and workers, in different classes and increases
  their differences.
• What difference would it make if this story were
  placed in another setting?

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Theme and Message

• The story as an initiation story (????) in which
  the 19-year-old Sammy has a rite of passage
  (???) at a supermarket.
• Self (Personal Aspiration) against Society
  (Social Control)
• Does he grow up?
• Yes, he realizes he cannot be a hero. But his
  realization is a bit self-centered and too
  dramatic.

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Next Time

• Another initiation story.
• Be patient when reading the images which will
  later take on symbolic meanings when they get
  grouped together (in image clusters).