Discuss Sammy’s character, all the things (admirable and otherwise) we learn from what he tells us directly and what we can infer indirectly.

Kelly J. Mays, The Norton Introduction to Literature (Shorter 13th Edition)
Group Questions about John Updike’s “A & P” (163-167).
1. Discuss Sammy’s character, all the things (admirable and otherwise) we learn from what he tells us directly and what we can infer indirectly. Pay attention to the breezy way he talks and to the many details he brings into his description of the episode
2. Consider what other characters in “A & P” contribute, directly and indirectly, through similarities and through ways in which they contrast with him. Consider the extent to which the three girls are a contrast to Sammy.
3. Consider how location (the town Sammy lives in and especially the store he works in) affects or contributes to the story. Does the story reflect attitudes of the early 1960s, when it was written, or isn’t the time setting important to the story’s effect?
4. Identify several conflicts (minor and major) in the story and their cumulative effect on Sammy. Does Sammy change as a result of these conflicts? Or does he stay pretty much the same? Why?
5. Why does Sammy quit his job? How would you describe what he does as heroic? As a foolish, mistaken impulse, or empty gesture? As a failed attempt at heroism? Or as something else or a mixture of these?
6. Discuss the last line: “and my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.” Is it an indication of a genuine change from who Sammy was in the opening paragraph? Why or why not?
Kelly J. Mays, The Norton Introduction to Literature (Shorter 13th Edition)
Questions about William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” (218-230).
1. Discuss the transformation that young Colonel Sartoris Snopes (“Sarty”) goes through from the beginning of “Barn Burning” in the store turned courtroom to the final scene where he gets away from his family and runs to warn Major De Spain.
2. What is Abner Snopes? What desires, motives, values, and views—especially of justice—seem to drive and explain him. How and why has he become the man he is? What is admirable about him? What is abhorrent?
3. What do each of the minor characters contribute to the story, especially Sarty’s mother, sisters, and older brother?
4. Although “Barn Burning” takes place some thirty years after the Civil War, what role does the war play in this story?
5. What adjectives best describe the tone of this story: Calm? Amused? Disinterested? Scornful? Marveling? Excited? impassioned? Cite passages that may be so described.
6. After delivering his warning to Major de Spain, the boy Snopes does not actually witness what happens to his father and brother, or what happens to the Major’s barn. What do you assume happens? What evidence is given in the story?