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In the first few words of the story "A Sandstone Farmhouse," Updike characterizes Joey by including what?

In the first few words of John Updike's story "A Sandstone Farmhouse," details of Joey's physical health and his emotional nature are included as he is described as "asthmatic" and "sensitive." Joey is physically and emotionally frail.


The family moves from the town of Olinger to the farmhouse where his mother was born, but the old house is cold and drafty, a condition that causes thirteen-year-old Joey to be ill frequently, another negative condition added to his alienation from the former life he had enjoyed with friends.


Joey makes several trips with his mother on the bus to the farmhouse before they move in, as she wants to plant things. However, Joey feels humiliated as they drag shovels onto the bus and the driver stores them in the luggage area. Yet, after they trudge down the dirt road, Joey feels somehow "heroic in the periodic trudge," as he is determined to win back his mother's love from the place that she apparently loves as much as she does her son. Perhaps this rivalry of love is the reason that Joey gets rid of so many things in the farmhouse after his mother dies. For, he is never able to conquer his sensitivity over the resentment that he felt for this old house. 

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