Authentic Manhood in Wright's "The Essay

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At the end of the story, we see the big windows, "bags of peat moss and aluminum lawn furniture stacked on the pavement" (1421) as Sammy walks away from the only world outside his home the he knew. These images successfully allow us to see the boys as boys rather than men.

Language becomes a significant aspect of both stories in that it allows us to see the boys and the worlds in which they live. Dialect in "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" gives us a clear image of Dave's world and, by doing so, provides additional reasons for him to become a man. He wants to be respected in a town where African-Americans work for white people and a sense of equality is absent. When Dave comments that he wants respect, what he wants is to be considered a man regardless of color. In "A and P," Sammy's language also demonstrates how he is not yet ready to be a man. He only notices things in a sexual nature. He is captivated when Queenie "lifts a folded dollar bill out of the hollow at the center of her nubbled pink top" (Updike 1419). When she speaks, we read "All of a sudden I slid right down her voice into her living room" (1419). This kind of language only surfaces in the mind of pubescent boy. Language becomes significant because we can see each boy in his environment, which allows us to see just how immature he is. Dave and Sammy cannot communicate their feelings and are not articulate enough to be considered real men in the outside world.

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Dave and Sammy want to be men but their conceptions of what it means to be a man are misguided. An honorable man would never behave the way Dave and Sammy do. They perceive honor as a gun and the attention of teenage girls, respectively. They also think that these insignificant things will bring them a sense of autonomy when all it actually does is set them further back on their journey to being a man. Dave must endure the shame of what he did and Sammy must deal with his parents and what walking away from his job means in the real world.

Real manhood becomes a fleeting dream for Dave and Sammy, two boys that want to be so grown up they behave foolishly in order to achieve it. They both behave impulsively, drawing attention to the fact that they are not ready for manhood just yet. However, both boys can say that they have grown up a bit in acknowledging that there is more to being a man than what they speculated.

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