Compare and contrast John Updike's story "A&P" and James Joyce's story "Araby."

While the protagonists in "A&P" and "Araby" are described as typical teenage males, they harbor widely disparate views about the female body. 

In "A&P," the teenage male narrator (Sammy) is focused on the superficial or the corporeal aspects of femininity. His interest in the girls is thoroughly carnal in nature, and he salivates over the female form. The first girl who catches his attention is dressed in a green, two-piece bikini:

She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs.

Our teenage narrator focuses on the girl's sexy and partially exposed behind. Of the three girls, Sammy is most enchanted by the one he dubs "the queen" or "Queenie." This particular girl is dressed in a "dirty pink" or beige bathing suit with the straps down. It does not take long for the narrator to notice her "white prima donna legs," "white shoulders," and sun-bleached "oaky hair." The sexy image before him inflames his imagination, and he pettily compares the girl's voluptuous beauty to that of the customer he is overcharging:

She's one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day to trip me up. She'd been watching cash registers forty years and probably never seen a mistake before.

In "A&P," the narrative is focused on the female form, while in "Araby," the language pertaining to femininity is refined and reverent. In "Araby," the teenage male narrator becomes obsessed with Mangan's sister. She is a mysterious, ethereal creature, and her beauty transcends even the most mundane aspects of life: "Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance" and "her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand." 

When he does describe her form, his narrative is only mildly sensual in nature. His language alludes to the beauty of the female form, with none of the crudeness inherent in the "A&P" text. 

The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. It fell over one side of her dress and caught the white border of a petticoat, just visible as she stood at ease.

Although both the male narrators in "Araby" and "A&P" appreciate the feminine form, both texts approach female beauty in markedly different ways. The language in "A&P" is more visceral in nature and is openly erotic. In contrast, the language in "Araby" is more refined and chooses to focus on the mystery of femininity and its metaphysical allure.