In John Updike’s story, “A & P,” it tells of a checkout boy, Sammy, who quits his job after his boss Mr. Lengel speaks disparagingly to three teenage girls who come into the grocery store on a summer afternoon. In V.S. Naipaul’s novel, “The Mimic Men,” it begins with Ralph Singh’s college years in London during the World War II, and then his return to the Trinidad–like island of Isabella with an English wife at war’s end. Because “The Mimic Men” begins and ends in London, Singh asserts within the larger state of exile that characterizes his postcolonial existence. Both Sammy from “A & P” and Ralph from “ The Mimic Men” learn and grow throughout each of the stories. But I come to see Sammy growing the most out of the two.
Even though Lengel does not make his physical appearance until near the story’s end, his arrival has in a way been foreshadowed by a number of other characters who preceded him. For example, Updike notes that as soon as the three girls appear in the A & P, the......
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