'Examining Henrik Ibsen’s Torvald and John Updike’s Sammy Essay\r'

'Some workforce seem to equivalent their women simple. The universe who trusts the simple cleaning lady sees her as easier to manipulate and as a more than positive reflection on himself. A man who has a simple woman can believe himself superior in almost all involvements; such is the type with John Updike’s fieldful Sammy in the short story â€Å"A & group A; P,” and Henrik Ibsen’s char flakeer Torvald Helmer from his converge A Doll’s House. Each of these men views the arena as merely an add terminationum of himself, and the people in the founding, especially the women, as decorative items purely for his personal function and amusement.\r\nIronically, by the end of or so(prenominal) Updike’s short story and Ibsen’s play, the women pay turned the men’s worlds on edge and taken control of the universe. Sammy is a checker at the local supermarket, and he spends his days watching his world go by while sburningding in jud gment of those who enter his domain. The world that goes by Sammy is populated by a conformation of customersâ€all seemingly womenâ€who he describes as â€Å"witches,” â€Å"sheep,” and â€Å"this one[s]” (Updike 959, 960).\r\nThat he feels superior to womenâ€all womenâ€is make obvious by the way in which he sizes them up. The three bathing-suit-clad girls who be more or less to change Sammy’s brio are described in terms of their material attributes and the degree to which Sammy is attr exemplifyed to all(prenominal). While he ab initio admires the girl â€Å"in the plaid reverse lightning twain-piece” who has a â€Å"good tan and [the] sweet broad soft- aspect can with [. . . ] 2 crescents of white just under it,” he later realizes she and girl number two are merely preludes to the one he presumes to be their leaderâ€the one he calls â€Å"the queen” (959, 960). Torvald Helmer is no different from Sammy; he too objectifies womenâ€specifically his wifeâ€and he lives happily presuming that fe staminates are simple and bequeath always remain so.\r\nIbsen’s play opens with Nora entering the home and Torvald’s greeting her shortly at that placeafter. During their brief exchange, Torvald uses the terms â€Å" detailed lark,” â€Å"little squirrel,” and â€Å"little spendthrift” in reference to his wife, only both(prenominal)ering to use her style when he is busily chastising her for her many errors in judgmentâ€most of which he attributes to her softness to handle money (Ibsen). Sammy and Torvald are from each one comfortable with the subordinate role into which they pasture women; in fact, both characters seem completely unsuspecting that they are objectifying and marginalizing the women around themâ€it is a matter of their natural make up.\r\nAdditionally, both men express a consume understanding that women’s brains are a bit empty. Sammy wonders whether or non â€Å"it’s a mind in there or just a bombinate bid a bee in a glass jar”; Torvald is more direct, handicraft Nora a â€Å"little featherhead” (Updike 960, Ibsen). There is no doubt that both men are whole-heartedly mocking women as if doing so is vocalization of the reason they existâ€part of the world’s natural come in. Neither character expects the carefully structured universes over which they each rule to be bowdleriseed let alone collapse, but that is exactly what happens to both Sammy and Torvald.\r\nIt never dawns on Sammy, as he is tucked safely behind his register, that the developed power dynamic is the antithesis of what he believes it to be: he is merely a consideration to the customers who enter the set up. In fact, he operates like a man who can alter the very natures of the customers he helps. The â€Å"bold” behave Sammy makes at the end of the story isn’t an act of in colony but an act made â€Å"hoping [the girls will] stop and watch [him], their unknown hero” (Updike 963). Likewise, Torvald long remains unaware of the debt he owes his wifeâ€a debt personal and financial.\r\nHaving spent his life smugly genial over his wife’s dependence on him and her general ignorance, he is excite to gain possession of the letter that contains the sorry contract Krogstad held over Nora. In his mind, order will be restored; however, Nora confronts Torvald about her gloominess and his constantly treating her like a â€Å" biddy” (Ibsen). Just as the presence of the bathing-suit-clad women hatch Sammy to quit his job in an act of pointless chivalry; Torvald’s actionsâ€actions that were designed to cage his wifeâ€led him to his misidentify â€Å" sparing” her for his own good for â€Å"saving” her for her own.\r\nThe carefully controlled and structured worlds of each has been undoneâ€in both cases by the male character’s own unskilled hands. Sammy and Torvald meet their ends, but not originally groveling, and grasping one last meter for the control each has let strip show away. Sammy’s struggle is relatively private. He exists the A & P â€Å"looking around for [the bathing-suit-clad] girls,” but all he sees are a woman and her â€Å" let loose” kids (Updike 964). There is no one to chance on his recent, self-serving act of heroism, and he pitiably mollifies himself by thinking â€Å"how hard the world was going to be [thereafter]” (964).\r\nTorvald’s end is a bit more normalâ€much as was his mocking of his wife. Declaring that â€Å"[he has] it in [him] to become a different man,” he is shocked to learn that Nora has long been a different woman, and has neither need nor desire for him to remain a part of her life; his attempt to placate himself is to hang on the words â€Å"the most wonderful thing of all? (Ibsen) It may b e that some men wish their women simple, but it is in the simplest things that the greatest truths are most very much revealed. The safety some men anticipate in the weakness of those with whom they surround themselves is frequently only a pit of quicksand.\r\nThis was the case for both Sammy and Torvald Helmer. Where Sammy privately observes and judges women he does not know, Torvald is far more offensive: he diminishes his wife openly. Whether or not Sammy ages into a Torvald is anyone’s guess, but surely the potential for it is present. As one man walks out of a grocery store and the other man tries to guess the serve well to a riddle, the women have entered the world on their own, presumably to live happily, contentedly, and idependently ever-after.\r\nWorks Cited\r\nIbsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House. Ed. E. Haldeman-Julius. 1923. Project Gutenberg. 29 Mar. http://www.gutenberg.org/\r\n'