Short Stories #2

Comparing Conflict in John Updike 's A

and Katherine Mansfield 's Miss Brill

An important element in a short story is the conflict . Since the short story is constrained to deliver its message as compared to a novel , the story is mainly focused on the conflict , and the conflict serves as an important tool to shed light on the characters . The conflict can be internal , or it can between characters , or a character against a situation . The conflict affects the outcome of the plot by offering an unexpected twist or a

revelation about a character

In John Updike 's short story , A

, the main conflict lies within Sammy . The story is told from Sammy 's point of view , and the readers see the events unfold as Sammy sees them . The first level conflict in the story concerns the girls who come in the store wearing swimsuits and walking around barefoot even though the beach is far from town 's center Sammy enjoys watching them , and although he knows that they were doing this to get attention , he does not reprimand them . Everybody in the grocery just leave the girls alone although they notice that the girls were not acting according to norms . In this situation , readers get a glimpse of how Sammy thinks - he sees the people shopping in the grocery as sheep , huddling together without strength to voice out their opinions . Later in the story , Sammy demonstrates how he is different from the other people in the grocery when he quits on the spot after Lengel the manager tells off the girls . Although not explicitly said , in Sammy 's eyes the girls were different from the other shoppers and he has taken an affinity with them . He looks at them with interest , and notes how they dared to wear their swimsuits in a conservative grocery in the middle of town five miles away from the beach . It was simply not done and the girls did it . Driven by pride , Sammy quits his job - first to show off to the girls , to be treated as their unsuspecting hero , and consequently to separate himself from the sheep-like customers in their community

The interesting twist in Sammy 's conflict is that he needs his job to support himself and his family . He quit his job on impulse , without thinking of its consequences , and when Lengel asked him to think about his decision he stubbornly stood his ground and walked away knowing full well that he needed the job but that he cannot swallow his pride . Updike devoted most of the space describing the girls through Sammy 's eyes and yet only gives a few sentences to hint that Sammy 's family has financial problems , and that young as he was he was already carrying the responsibility of an adult man . Thus , it exacerbates the gravity of the situation - Sammy quits his job first and as he walks out it dawns on him that things will be much difficult for him...