Wife Of His Youth By Charles W. Chesnutt: Character Analysis

Although the rich and the poor may be categorized into two different communities, they do, however, both share a similar characteristic. The stories “A&P” by John Updike and “Wife of His Youth” by Charles W. Chesnutt each have protagonists, or characters we should identify with. The character, Sammy, from “A&P” is comparable to Mr Ryder, from “Wife of His Youth” in multiple ways. In “A&P” Sammy is a grocery clerk who sees some beautiful women. He decides to stand up for them when his boss confronts them, and ends up quitting his job. Mr. Ryder is a former slave who is now a well educated man in a group called the Blue Vein Society. A woman stumbles upon him asking if he's seen her husband, only to find out Mr. Ryder is her husband. The differences

Ryder was a former slave that was freed before the Civil War. After the war he became a member of the Blue Vein Society, which was “a little society of colored persons organized in a certain Northern city shortly after the war” (Chesnutt 1). The only consideration to become a member was their culture and character. Chesnutt describes the conflict Mr. Ryder faces is which woman he should choose to stay with. Mrs. Dixon, who was a young, white, widow, and Mr. Ryder are compatible because they are both well educated and wealthy. Liza Jane was everything Mr. Ryder used to be, she was poor and uneducated. Little did Mr. Ryder know he would have to compare the pros and cons of each woman after he found out that he was in fact Liza Jane’s husband before the Civil

Lengel, the manager, tells them “Girls this isn’t the beach” (Updike 984), in a way that frustrates Sammy. This shows that Sammy has enough courage to stand up for the girls, but they just view him as a poor black man. Sammy can be compared to Mr. Ryder before Mr. Ryder was well educated and rich.

Updike portrayed Sammy’s weaknesses as him being shy and poor. Sammy being shy makes him weak because is not brave enough to say what he feels needs to be said, unless it is a dire situation. Sammy could have said something to the girls before hand, instead of just quitting his job impulsively, to get their attention. Sammy is a poor man so he is automatically looked down upon by the girls who came to the store just for herring snacks.

Suddenly Sammy resorted to quitting his job for the attention from girls he so desperately wanted. Now he is stuck in a situation without a job, and he knows he needs one to support himself. Sammy wasted a learning opportunity to talk to girls while he just stood on the side line and watched them and listened to their conversations. Sammy realized after he quit that he shouldn’t have, when he said, “My stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter” (Updike