Carcaha.

Mateo Beltran Rojas

Professor Comer

Freshman composition 2

The authors of “the lesson” and “A&P” criticize the objectification from the people to one another, and the customs of stereotyping or classifying people and been resigned to those stereotypes. Bambara criticize mostly racial stereotypes, while Updike criticizes social class differences. Those judgments are similar in the way that people see each other as something that they can understand and classify into something very simple. There is a human need to understand the things that surround us (or at least to think we do) that is one of the reason with objectify people. The human being a sociable creature define himself by reflecting in the others, so we end up objectifying ourselves or classifying ourselves in those simple categories. People like to think that they understand

The author of “the lesson” pictures the low class people as lazy, hopeless, how like to blame others of their own problems. And the end of the first paragraph the author said:

Which is how she got saddled with me and Sugar and Junior in the first place while our mothers were in a la-de-da apartment up the block having a good ole time.

Bambara also describes Miss Moore as an old lady who tries to educate these little children by taking them to the high class neighborhoods, just to give them her description of the world and how the kids could not do nothing about it; obviously the author doesn’t share that idea, because we see Sylvia at the end of the history with a light of hope even though Miss Moore have been trying to restricted them from that. Updike is not so direct with his ideas; he does not say concepts literally even though his characters are just mere stereotypes as: rich girls, grumpy old ladies, the religious fan, and the middle class hopeless boy. Updike’s point of view seems to be a little bit more realistic but at the same time resigned. The writer doesn’t wife that light at the end of the tunnel as Bambara does, Updike doesn’t give any hope at the end of the story.

These two stories are a reflection of the reality from writer’s point of view; the common aspect is the objectification of the people. Sami (the guy in the cash register) sees the girls as symbols of mere lust, he values them just because of their aspect and describes the girls comparing their bodies to item in the store (objects that you can buy, use, and discard). Bonnie Moradi and Yu-Ping Huang explain more about how does appearance affects the value of women on their jobs or in public places:

Sexual objectification occurs when a woman’s sexual parts or functions are separated out of her person, reduced to status of mere instruments, or else regarded as if they were capable of representing her. To be dealt with in this way is to have one’s entire being identified with the body. (Moradi and Huang)

It is not literally said in the story but it is implied that those girls also see the other people as objects to be used: “Itʼs not as if weʼre On the Cape; weʼre north of Boston and thereʼs people in this town havenʼt seen the Ocean for twenty years.” (Updike). These girls were looking for people to worship them because of their bodies (they were objectifying themselves). Another example is the Sunday-school teacher, he is another person classifying himself as “right” and others as wrong, it seems like moral objectification. In the other hand Bambara does not tell us the other side of the coin, he only shows the low class people’s opinion, and his characters are always being annoying and classifying all the time the rich people as “crazy white folks”. All those examples are described to be annoying for the reader, they are written to

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