English Literature

The story is about understanding human behavior under different circumstances. The author has tried to differentiate between two human traitsinnocence and immaturity. These two forms of behavior are extremely different from each other but most often than naught, these two terms are used interchangeably. The difference between the two states of mind could be described by the amount of pureness in either of them. By reading the story, it is quite evident that innocence is purer as compared to immaturity. Immaturity could be classified as a negative trait which a human being should not have. Whereas a persons innocence is never taken as a negative aspect of his personality.

In the story by John Updike, Sammy is a young man who is most often than naught described as immature. But honestly, Sammy was an innocent man who had to quit his job over three immature women all thanks to his innocence. The women in the story do all the things which could be proclaimed as wrongbut being immature they just do not realize that they are committing anything wrong. Sammys innocence dwells in bare demarcation to the girls immaturity. Sammys innocence could be depicted by the fact that he did not mind looking at the girls in their bathing suits. He did that without any trace of embarrassment and there was hardly any point where the man was conscious of what he had been doing all the time.

It is quite obvious to conclude what he had been doing. But he did that without worrying about others. He did not mind if others were watching him or taking a note of his activities. In one of the incidents, he says, I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not. This shows that he hardly cared about the surroundings. He went into a condition of being perturbed only when he noticed a customer protesting his act of ringing the crackersnot once but twice. Had he not been innocent, he could have been vulgar about his thoughts about the girls. He went forward to give the girls his favorite and respectful name Queenie.  (Short Story Reviews--nd)
Looking at the things he did, there is something quite clearhe was neither too mature nor too much immature in accordance to the age. Another true young man would never have done the same which Sammy did. It is obvious not a mature thing to doto stare at girls in their bathing suits. A mature man would not have been so much distracted by their presence around him. A green young man might have deserted his register at the first instance in order to stick with Queenie around the store, slobbering over her from backside a flock of canned peaches.

But it was what he did after that which eventually costs him his job. His final act of innocence makes him quit his job. He does not realize whether it is right or wrong to quit the job on that incidents account. (Short Story Reviews--nd) He hardly has any idea about the futility of the actions he was doing at that point of time. He should have an idea that quitting a job is never going to serve any point or quitting the job will not prove any point to be honest. The girls on the other side were immature enough to scold him all the time in the store. But they are hardly to be blamed because they did not know Sammy and they generalized him as another man of his age who are glorified to be naughty and immature. They are pretty used to incidents when young men try to procure them but admiring their body publically was much more than they could take at that point of time. To be honest, girls at times do a few things to gain some sort of attention from opposite sex. This is quite common thing to do but in this case was very immature of the girls to adopt such behavior. The final evidence which proves that they were immature is the fact that rather than confronting the situation they simply chose to run away from the situation. Sammys innocence in not bordering on the girls or attempting to toy with them makes him less stimulating in their green minds.