“Behind Grandma’s House” is a mind-boggling poem about a rowdy and playful 10year old boy who is full of himself. ‘At ten I wanted fame.’ This young man feels as though he has got the whole world in his palm. We see him kicking over trash cans, hurling light bulbs, flickering rocks at cats and shooing pigeons. He thinks he is very tough. One day however his destructive expeditions are brought to a sudden halt by his grandma. On this occasion his destructive nature catches the eye of his grandmother. She comes out of the house to ‘check’ on his grandson and she offers to ‘help’ him. Ironically she punches him on the face. The lesson learnt from the excerpt is that of tough love. The boy is growing up in a bad way so his grandmother remedies the situation by hitting him. The clear message that the grandmother has passed to her grandson is that in this cruel world there will be consequences’ for his actions. She must be cruel in order to be kind.
John Updike’s short story “A"P” is a breath-taking piece of work about Sammy, a young lad who is harshly introduced into the reality of adulthood life. Sammy is left gob smacked when 3 girls walk into the grocery skimpily dressed. He immediately is sexually intrigued with the ladies and loses his head. He begins fantasizing about the ladies even naming one Queenie. When the store Manager Mr. Lengel confronts the ladies due to their inappropriate dressing Sammy in an attempt to be the hero decides to quit his job hoping that the ladies will notice his deeds. His heroic moment is however lost because the ladies hurriedly leave without hearing Sammy’s words. Once outside it all dawns on Sammy. ‘’ He felt how hard the world was going to be for me hereafter. The moral story that can be derived from this excerpt is that we must be ready to accept the consequences of our actions. If we want to avoid the troubles of life we ought to think twice before we act. For every action there will be an equal and opposite reaction. Just as Mr. Lengel said, "You'll feel this for the rest of your life (John Updike: A"p, 28)."
Coraghessan Boyle “Greasy Lake” is a story about 3 adolescent boys who learnt painful life lessons in their pursuit to be bad. According to them, “It was good to be bad, when you cultivated decadence like a taste.” On one occasion as they were wreaking havoc as always they stumbled upon an enraged tough guy that they mistook to be their friend Tony. Immediately a brawl ensued and the protagonist and his friends are hurt. They are left bloodied and wounded. The three young men retaliate by hitting the angry guy with a tire iron. He is left unconscious on the floor fighting for his own life. The boys then go on to sexually harass the tough guy’s girlfriend before a car pulls up and they flee the scene. While hiding in the lake the protagonist spots the body of a dead man floating. This is when it all begins dawning on him. He was probably just like the protagonist and his friends; acting all tough and probably ended in a fight that cost him his life. The scars that had been embedded on their bodies were going to haunt them forever. They had to turn on a new leaf; change old ways to new ones. They found out the hard way that striving to be bad in order to appear cool sometimes results in bad accidents with catastrophic consequences (Boyle and Bandini, 34).
Works Cited
Boyle, T C, and Ditte Bandini. Greasy Lake Und Andere Geschichten. Dt. Taschenbuch-Verl, 2015.
John Updike: A"p.
