Tag: essay

A Clerk and a Traveler Make the Tough Choices

There
are moments in life when we as rational human beings must make
choices.  The choices we make are sometimes small: the type of milk
to buy, or which film to watch at the movie theater.  If we are
fortunate, we must make more important choices; choices that require
deliberation and careful thought.  But it is the simple act of
choosing that is perhaps the most important aspect.  It is not the
end result, beneficial or otherwise, that matters.  In John Updike’s
short story “A & P” and Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not
Taken,” we see that it is the choice itself that makes all the
difference.

Facing
a choice means facing more than one possibility and considering those
possibilities, applying thought and knowledge obtained from past
experience.  In “A & P” the protagonist, Sammy, faces a
choice when he decides to quit his job as a grocery store clerk after
his manager Lengel publicly humiliates several girls for wearing what
he believed were inappropriate outfits.  Initially, it appears that
Sammy decides to quit in order to get the girls’ attention; a vain
attempt at gaining their favor.  However, after questioning himself
on whether or not it was a wise decision, he decides it is and sticks
to it.  As he says it is “fatal” not to follow through on such a
gesture (Updike 62), which demonstrates that Sammy considered the
decision and the possible outcomes and ultimately decided that the
choice to quit would ultimately be the better choice if only to
retain his self-respect.  Likewise in “The Road Not Taken,” the
traveler is faced with two possible paths which he can take.  He
observes one path before choosing the other, or as the traveler
states, “…long I stood / and looked down one as far as I could.”
He stood and weighed the option to travel down one path versus the
traveling down the other, once again demonstrating that when we are
faced with more than one choice we must deliberate on and think
carefully about the possibilities before choosing one or the other.

It
is a sign of character when a person stands for a belief or decision
even when it seems as if the choice will lead to a difficult road
ahead.  Sammy ultimately stands for what he believed was a just
decision in quitting to protest the unfair treatment of the girls in
the store. The girls were just customers, after all, who were there
to make a purchase and nothing else.  He could have very easily
changed his mind and chosen to remain at his clerk position when
Lengel told him, “Sammy, you don’t want to do this to your Mom
and Dad,” or, “You’ll feel this for the rest of your life”
(Updike 62), which may have encouraged a person of weak character to
remain or turn back on the initial choice, but Sammy stands by his
decision.  The traveler in “The Road Not Taken” speaks of taking
“… the one less traveled by” (Frost), indicating that the path
he took was an unpopular one, but follows up by saying “And that
has made all the difference.”  The traveler in the poem makes a
literal choice of one path versus the other and displays character by
choosing a path that was not as well-traveled as the other, at least
in his mind.  Frost clearly intended for the traveler to be a
metaphor for the state of mind where a person must make a difficult
decision and in his poem he seems to advocate that making the choice
builds one’s character.

Maturity,
that is to say emotional and mental maturity, is merely the means by
which we gain experience and use that experience as a base for our
decision-making process.  It is often a sign of maturity, then, when
a choice is not made randomly but with deliberate consideration.
Moreover, the choices made help us mature as well.  Sammy’s choice
is a clear one: stand by his perhaps ill-conceived decision to quit
in protest of the unfair treatment towards the girls, or back out of
his choice and resume his work as a clerk at the register.  At that
point in Updike’s “A & P” we have read Sammy’s rather
unpleasant view of working at the A & P, with the “witches”
(Updike 58), “house slaves” (Updike 59), and “sheep” (Updike
62) being regular players in his dreary existence in a small town
grocery store, and as such we as the readers can see that Sammy has
experienced working there and has learned it is not a pleasant job to
him.  Additionally his background, told by him throughout the story,
indicates that he is still in the “maturing” phase of
adolescence.  He lives with his parents, his mother does his laundry,
and he even says he is nearly nineteen years old.  So, when Sammy
chooses to take a stand he is taking a vital step in his emotional
and mental maturity, adding to his mental cache of experience.  The
traveler in Frost’s poem speaks of age and maturity when he says,
“I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages
hence.” (Frost).  He knows that, as he grows older, he will look
back on the moment of his choice and be the wiser for having made the
choice.  Both authors, through the characters in their respective
works, show that making such difficult choices is an important part
of maturing, despite the consequences that may come about as a
result.

It
is then vital to remember that each choice (that is, a scenario where
a person must decide between more than one option), comes with one or
more consequences.  The direst aspect of making a choice, then, is
the consequence of said choice.   There are some choices, such as,
say, which movies to watch, which have no particular consequence
other than a bad and quickly forgotten film experience.  It is not
such choices and consequences that I speak of.  I refer to those same
important choices that encourage careful thought, demonstrate
character, and that we use to build upon our maturity.  These choices
are the ones that get us to think about the consequences.  Take, for
example, when Sammy reflects on his decision to quit his job at the
grocery store:  “… my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the
world was going to be to me hereafter.” (Updike 62).  He says this
after stepping out of the store, and at that moment he realizes that
the choice he made would have serious consequences, and perhaps leads
to a difficult path in life.  The traveler in Frost’s poem, on the
other hand, is very considerate of the possible consequences of his
choice as he ponders which path to take.  He stands for a long while,
peers down both paths, and even takes in minute details such as the
amount of wear on each path.  This traveler carefully considers his
path, and therefore the consequences of taking one path over the
other, before making his choice, even if in reflection he realizes
that both paths were, “about the same” (Frost).

So
while some choices have immediate consequences or are more beneficial
than other possible choices, others have consequences and benefits
not foreseen.  There is no consistency to the act of making these
choices as, like life, it is impossible to foresee what we will have
to face.  We must simply stand before the manager, or the paths, or
even the sign displaying the movies showing tonight, and make the
choice–come what may.

Works Cited

Frost, Robert.  “The Road Not Taken.”
Living Literature: An Introduction to
Fiction, Poetry, and Drama.  Ed.
John C. Brereton.  New York: Longman, 2007.  1062.

Updike, John.  “A & P.”  Living
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama.
Ed. John C. Brereton.  New York: Longman, 2007.  58-62.

A Clerk and a Traveler Make the Tough Choices

There
are moments in life when we as rational human beings must make
choices.  The choices we make are sometimes small: the type of milk
to buy, or which film to watch at the movie theater.  If we are
fortunate, we must make more important choices; choices that require
deliberation and careful thought.  But it is the simple act of
choosing that is perhaps the most important aspect.  It is not the
end result, beneficial or otherwise, that matters.  In John Updike’s
short story “A & P” and Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not
Taken,” we see that it is the choice itself that makes all the
difference.

Facing
a choice means facing more than one possibility and considering those
possibilities, applying thought and knowledge obtained from past
experience.  In “A & P” the protagonist, Sammy, faces a
choice when he decides to quit his job as a grocery store clerk after
his manager Lengel publicly humiliates several girls for wearing what
he believed were inappropriate outfits.  Initially, it appears that
Sammy decides to quit in order to get the girls’ attention; a vain
attempt at gaining their favor.  However, after questioning himself
on whether or not it was a wise decision, he decides it is and sticks
to it.  As he says it is “fatal” not to follow through on such a
gesture (Updike 62), which demonstrates that Sammy considered the
decision and the possible outcomes and ultimately decided that the
choice to quit would ultimately be the better choice if only to
retain his self-respect.  Likewise in “The Road Not Taken,” the
traveler is faced with two possible paths which he can take.  He
observes one path before choosing the other, or as the traveler
states, “…long I stood / and looked down one as far as I could.”
He stood and weighed the option to travel down one path versus the
traveling down the other, once again demonstrating that when we are
faced with more than one choice we must deliberate on and think
carefully about the possibilities before choosing one or the other.

It
is a sign of character when a person stands for a belief or decision
even when it seems as if the choice will lead to a difficult road
ahead.  Sammy ultimately stands for what he believed was a just
decision in quitting to protest the unfair treatment of the girls in
the store. The girls were just customers, after all, who were there
to make a purchase and nothing else.  He could have very easily
changed his mind and chosen to remain at his clerk position when
Lengel told him, “Sammy, you don’t want to do this to your Mom
and Dad,” or, “You’ll feel this for the rest of your life”
(Updike 62), which may have encouraged a person of weak character to
remain or turn back on the initial choice, but Sammy stands by his
decision.  The traveler in “The Road Not Taken” speaks of taking
“… the one less traveled by” (Frost), indicating that the path
he took was an unpopular one, but follows up by saying “And that
has made all the difference.”  The traveler in the poem makes a
literal choice of one path versus the other and displays character by
choosing a path that was not as well-traveled as the other, at least
in his mind.  Frost clearly intended for the traveler to be a
metaphor for the state of mind where a person must make a difficult
decision and in his poem he seems to advocate that making the choice
builds one’s character.

Maturity,
that is to say emotional and mental maturity, is merely the means by
which we gain experience and use that experience as a base for our
decision-making process.  It is often a sign of maturity, then, when
a choice is not made randomly but with deliberate consideration.
Moreover, the choices made help us mature as well.  Sammy’s choice
is a clear one: stand by his perhaps ill-conceived decision to quit
in protest of the unfair treatment towards the girls, or back out of
his choice and resume his work as a clerk at the register.  At that
point in Updike’s “A & P” we have read Sammy’s rather
unpleasant view of working at the A & P, with the “witches”
(Updike 58), “house slaves” (Updike 59), and “sheep” (Updike
62) being regular players in his dreary existence in a small town
grocery store, and as such we as the readers can see that Sammy has
experienced working there and has learned it is not a pleasant job to
him.  Additionally his background, told by him throughout the story,
indicates that he is still in the “maturing” phase of
adolescence.  He lives with his parents, his mother does his laundry,
and he even says he is nearly nineteen years old.  So, when Sammy
chooses to take a stand he is taking a vital step in his emotional
and mental maturity, adding to his mental cache of experience.  The
traveler in Frost’s poem speaks of age and maturity when he says,
“I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages
hence.” (Frost).  He knows that, as he grows older, he will look
back on the moment of his choice and be the wiser for having made the
choice.  Both authors, through the characters in their respective
works, show that making such difficult choices is an important part
of maturing, despite the consequences that may come about as a
result.

It
is then vital to remember that each choice (that is, a scenario where
a person must decide between more than one option), comes with one or
more consequences.  The direst aspect of making a choice, then, is
the consequence of said choice.   There are some choices, such as,
say, which movies to watch, which have no particular consequence
other than a bad and quickly forgotten film experience.  It is not
such choices and consequences that I speak of.  I refer to those same
important choices that encourage careful thought, demonstrate
character, and that we use to build upon our maturity.  These choices
are the ones that get us to think about the consequences.  Take, for
example, when Sammy reflects on his decision to quit his job at the
grocery store:  “… my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the
world was going to be to me hereafter.” (Updike 62).  He says this
after stepping out of the store, and at that moment he realizes that
the choice he made would have serious consequences, and perhaps leads
to a difficult path in life.  The traveler in Frost’s poem, on the
other hand, is very considerate of the possible consequences of his
choice as he ponders which path to take.  He stands for a long while,
peers down both paths, and even takes in minute details such as the
amount of wear on each path.  This traveler carefully considers his
path, and therefore the consequences of taking one path over the
other, before making his choice, even if in reflection he realizes
that both paths were, “about the same” (Frost).

So
while some choices have immediate consequences or are more beneficial
than other possible choices, others have consequences and benefits
not foreseen.  There is no consistency to the act of making these
choices as, like life, it is impossible to foresee what we will have
to face.  We must simply stand before the manager, or the paths, or
even the sign displaying the movies showing tonight, and make the
choice–come what may.

Works Cited

Frost, Robert.  “The Road Not Taken.”
Living Literature: An Introduction to
Fiction, Poetry, and Drama.  Ed.
John C. Brereton.  New York: Longman, 2007.  1062.

Updike, John.  “A & P.”  Living
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama.
Ed. John C. Brereton.  New York: Longman, 2007.  58-62.

On Loving a Father, “Those Winter Sundays”

Love
can be an emotion that is not expressed or recognized easily.  There
are many “types” of love, and the comprehension of the word
“love” itself is quite subjective to an individual’s experience
or understanding, but there is perhaps no version of love quite as
unrivaled in it’s complexity than that version which we see in
“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden – the love between
father and child.  Hayden expresses an adult’s lament for not
recognizing the love of a father when the adult was still a child,
and in his childhood recollection the adult conveys the love that the
father did not explicitly state.

In
the poem the adult tells of a routine that begins with the father
waking up early on Sunday mornings, as he does every morning (“Sunday
too my father got up early”) (Hayden 1), when the “blueblack
cold” (Hayden 2) of the time before dawn is still present in the
house and the adult, then a child, is still asleep.  We learn that
the father works a laborious job during the week, coming home with “…
cracked hands that ached / from labor in the weekday weather…”
(Hayden 3-4), and while many people would certainly be content to
alleviate the physical weariness during the weekend, this man chooses
to get out of bed even on the days when he is not at work.

So,
why do it?  Why suffer, as it were, and give up the opportunity to
rest?  In the fourth and fifth lines of that first stanza we are
given a simple explanation for the father braving the cold and his
physical exhaustion: to make “banked fires blaze…” (Hayden 5).
The fire in the fireplace or stove (the means is not specified) must
be tended in order to bring warmth to the household and his child.
The father’s warming the house is seemingly nothing extraordinary,
and some could argue that he does it out of a sense of fatherly duty
rather than a loving affection for the child.  But is fatherly duty
not simply an expression of the love for a father’s children?  The
final sentence in the stanza, “… No one ever thanked him”
(Hayden 5), demonstrates that the adult considered it an important
act that went beyond mere duty – while it is not explicitly stated,
bringing warmth his child is viewed as an act of love.  There is
another such moment of realization on the adult’s part when he
speaks of the father polishing his “…good shoes as well”
(Hayden 12) in the third line of the final stanza.  It is another
seemingly simple part of the routine, and one that most certainly
could have been required of the child, but the father chooses once
again to do it for reasons that the child was unaware of – love.

There
is a more subtle aspect to the routine that is not as delineated when
compared to what is plainly stated in the poem.  The title itself,
“Those Winter Sundays,” is perhaps the biggest hint, but as we
read into the poem there are many supporting terms and lines that
give credence the idea that this father is preparing his child for an
important weekly event: church on Sundays.  In the second and third
lines of the second stanza we read, “When the rooms were warm, he’d
call, / and slowly I would rise and dress…”  What reason could
there be for waking up early on a Sunday morning?  Again, we are not
explicitly told, but the evidence for this is then strengthened when
one considers that the father polished his good shoes.  We are faced
with a child being woken up on a Sunday morning, called by his father
to specifically rise and get dressed, then presented with a freshly
polished pair of good shoes.  It certainly does sound like
preparation for Sunday church.  As is written in the Bible, “Keep
the sabbath day to sanctify it…” (King James Version Deut. 5:12).
This father could very well be preparing his child to attend church,
a tradition that many people around the world believe improves morals
and character, among other positive qualities.  A loving father,
then, would take his child to Sunday church because he cares for the
child and wants to help improve the child’s life.

As
mentioned, when the temperature reached comfortable levels the father
would call to the child to wake up and get dressed.  Hayden’s
persona of the regretful adult conveys waking up to the sound of the
wood in the fire crackling, or as the adult recalls the sound of
“cold splintering, breaking” (Hayden 6), certainly a sharp
contrast to the warmth of a fire.  The vivid description shows how he
perceived the sounds of his father’s early morning labors as a
child.  Following the call the child would rise and get dressed,
slowly and without any particular urgency as the child had a fear of
the “chronic angers of that house” (Hayden 9).  We are never told
what these “angers” could be, but as the only other prominent
character in the poem is the father we can infer that the father
instilled a type of fear in the child.  It is common for children to
fear their father, who is often seen as the stern figure that asserts
authority over his children.  As the French philosopher Joseph
Joubert wrote in his notebooks, “Love and fear.  Everything the
father of a family says must inspire one or the other” (“Joseph
Joubert”), and in this case it appears the father inspired fear.
The father may be performing his fatherly duty by taking care of his
child, but the child is unable to interpret the father’s actions as
symbols of his love, and resorts to “Speaking indifferently to
him…” (Hayden 10).  Thus, the father’s love goes unrecognized.

It
is not until the final stanza of the poem, in the final two lines,
that the adult expresses his feelings about not recognizing the
father’s love until adulthood: “What did I know, what did I know
/ of love’s austere and lonely offices?” (Hayden 13-14).  The
adult’s regret is laid out before us when he asks himself what he
knew, for he was only a child and could not know that all that the
father did for the child was done out of love.  He comes to
understand that love is not as easy to obtain when one is in a high
“office,” or place of authority.  As the authority figure the
father helped his child as best he could, loving him all the while,
but never able to express the love in a manner that the child could
recognize.

Works Cited

The Criswell Study Bible: King James Version.
Ed. W. A. Criswell.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1979.

Hayden, Robert.  “Those Winter Sundays.”
Living Literature: An Introduction to
Fiction, Poetry, and Drama.  Ed.
John C. Brereton.  New York: Longman, 2007.  1083.

“Joseph Joubert.”  Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.  13
Feb 2008, 23:21 UTC.  Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.  24 Mar 2008.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Joubert&oldid=191285803>.

On Loving a Father, “Those Winter Sundays”

Love
can be an emotion that is not expressed or recognized easily.  There
are many “types” of love, and the comprehension of the word
“love” itself is quite subjective to an individual’s experience
or understanding, but there is perhaps no version of love quite as
unrivaled in it’s complexity than that version which we see in
“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden – the love between
father and child.  Hayden expresses an adult’s lament for not
recognizing the love of a father when the adult was still a child,
and in his childhood recollection the adult conveys the love that the
father did not explicitly state.

In
the poem the adult tells of a routine that begins with the father
waking up early on Sunday mornings, as he does every morning (“Sunday
too my father got up early”) (Hayden 1), when the “blueblack
cold” (Hayden 2) of the time before dawn is still present in the
house and the adult, then a child, is still asleep.  We learn that
the father works a laborious job during the week, coming home with “…
cracked hands that ached / from labor in the weekday weather…”
(Hayden 3-4), and while many people would certainly be content to
alleviate the physical weariness during the weekend, this man chooses
to get out of bed even on the days when he is not at work.

So,
why do it?  Why suffer, as it were, and give up the opportunity to
rest?  In the fourth and fifth lines of that first stanza we are
given a simple explanation for the father braving the cold and his
physical exhaustion: to make “banked fires blaze…” (Hayden 5).
The fire in the fireplace or stove (the means is not specified) must
be tended in order to bring warmth to the household and his child.
The father’s warming the house is seemingly nothing extraordinary,
and some could argue that he does it out of a sense of fatherly duty
rather than a loving affection for the child.  But is fatherly duty
not simply an expression of the love for a father’s children?  The
final sentence in the stanza, “… No one ever thanked him”
(Hayden 5), demonstrates that the adult considered it an important
act that went beyond mere duty – while it is not explicitly stated,
bringing warmth his child is viewed as an act of love.  There is
another such moment of realization on the adult’s part when he
speaks of the father polishing his “…good shoes as well”
(Hayden 12) in the third line of the final stanza.  It is another
seemingly simple part of the routine, and one that most certainly
could have been required of the child, but the father chooses once
again to do it for reasons that the child was unaware of – love.

There
is a more subtle aspect to the routine that is not as delineated when
compared to what is plainly stated in the poem.  The title itself,
“Those Winter Sundays,” is perhaps the biggest hint, but as we
read into the poem there are many supporting terms and lines that
give credence the idea that this father is preparing his child for an
important weekly event: church on Sundays.  In the second and third
lines of the second stanza we read, “When the rooms were warm, he’d
call, / and slowly I would rise and dress…”  What reason could
there be for waking up early on a Sunday morning?  Again, we are not
explicitly told, but the evidence for this is then strengthened when
one considers that the father polished his good shoes.  We are faced
with a child being woken up on a Sunday morning, called by his father
to specifically rise and get dressed, then presented with a freshly
polished pair of good shoes.  It certainly does sound like
preparation for Sunday church.  As is written in the Bible, “Keep
the sabbath day to sanctify it…” (King James Version Deut. 5:12).
This father could very well be preparing his child to attend church,
a tradition that many people around the world believe improves morals
and character, among other positive qualities.  A loving father,
then, would take his child to Sunday church because he cares for the
child and wants to help improve the child’s life.

As
mentioned, when the temperature reached comfortable levels the father
would call to the child to wake up and get dressed.  Hayden’s
persona of the regretful adult conveys waking up to the sound of the
wood in the fire crackling, or as the adult recalls the sound of
“cold splintering, breaking” (Hayden 6), certainly a sharp
contrast to the warmth of a fire.  The vivid description shows how he
perceived the sounds of his father’s early morning labors as a
child.  Following the call the child would rise and get dressed,
slowly and without any particular urgency as the child had a fear of
the “chronic angers of that house” (Hayden 9).  We are never told
what these “angers” could be, but as the only other prominent
character in the poem is the father we can infer that the father
instilled a type of fear in the child.  It is common for children to
fear their father, who is often seen as the stern figure that asserts
authority over his children.  As the French philosopher Joseph
Joubert wrote in his notebooks, “Love and fear.  Everything the
father of a family says must inspire one or the other” (“Joseph
Joubert”), and in this case it appears the father inspired fear.
The father may be performing his fatherly duty by taking care of his
child, but the child is unable to interpret the father’s actions as
symbols of his love, and resorts to “Speaking indifferently to
him…” (Hayden 10).  Thus, the father’s love goes unrecognized.

It
is not until the final stanza of the poem, in the final two lines,
that the adult expresses his feelings about not recognizing the
father’s love until adulthood: “What did I know, what did I know
/ of love’s austere and lonely offices?” (Hayden 13-14).  The
adult’s regret is laid out before us when he asks himself what he
knew, for he was only a child and could not know that all that the
father did for the child was done out of love.  He comes to
understand that love is not as easy to obtain when one is in a high
“office,” or place of authority.  As the authority figure the
father helped his child as best he could, loving him all the while,
but never able to express the love in a manner that the child could
recognize.

Works Cited

The Criswell Study Bible: King James Version.
Ed. W. A. Criswell.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1979.

Hayden, Robert.  “Those Winter Sundays.”
Living Literature: An Introduction to
Fiction, Poetry, and Drama.  Ed.
John C. Brereton.  New York: Longman, 2007.  1083.

“Joseph Joubert.”  Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.  13
Feb 2008, 23:21 UTC.  Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.  24 Mar 2008.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Joubert&oldid=191285803>.