What is The Armpit?

Englander uses the phrase “the armpit” to symbolize a place of vulgarity and negativity. The guard laments his birth, believing it to have fatalistically doomed him to failure; thus in order to insult the place and reinforce its rottenness, the guard refers to it as “the armpit of the Levant” (9). Englander also refers to a “loyal aide” running “his boss’s Right Guard up and down his own patriotic armpit” (16). The description of this act is meant to appear demeaning. The armpit is a place with which no one wants to be in contact.