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Literary analysis essay of A & P by John Updike
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Literary analysis essay of A & P by John Updike
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In the short story “A&P”, John Updike uses similes, metaphors, and other figurative language in order to portray the narrator's opinion on women. He uses phrases such as “giving me hell”(Updike 1), “she was the Queen”(Updike 2), “buzz like a bee in a glass jar”(Updike 2), “shoulder bones like a denten sheet of metal”(Updike 2), “the sheep pushing their carts down the aisle”(Updike 2), and much more to describe the narrator's opinion on the people who go into the store. This insight into the narrator’s mind is a good tool to show his personality since the story is written in his point of view rather than third person or one of the girls. Updike also wrote in an informal tone to make it seem less like a story and more like someone talking to
Wells, Walter. "John Updike's 'A & P'" Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 30, (1993) : Spring, pp. 127(7).
William Peden once called John Updike’s “A&P” “deftly narrated nonsense...which contains nothing more significant than a checking clerk's interest in three girls in bathing suits” (Peden). While Peden’s criticism may be harsher than necessary, it is hard to find fault with his analysis. Sammy’s tale offers little more than insight into an egocentric and self-motivated mind, and while Updike may disagree with that conclusion, a close reading of the text offers significant evidence to support this theory. In “An Interview with John Updike”, Updike describes how Sammy quit as a “feminist protest” (153). However, I would argue that Sammy’s act of defiance was selfishly motivated and represents his inner struggle with his social class as demonstrated through his contempt for those around him and his self-motivated actions.
Two Works Cited In John Updike’s "A & P," Sammy is accused of quitting his job for childlike, immature reasons. Nathan Hatcher states, "In reality, Sammy quit his job not on a matter of ideals, but rather as a means of showing off and trying to impress the girls, specially Queenie" (37), but Sammy’s motive runs much deeper than that. He was searching for a sense of personal gain and satisfaction. By taking sides with the girls, he momentarily rises in class to meet their standards and the standards of the upper-class.
Interpretation of A & P This story takes place in 1961, in a small New England town's A&P grocery store. Sammy, the narrator, is introduced as a grocery checker and an observer of the store's patrons. He finds himself fascinated by a particular group of girls. Just in from the beach and still in their bathing suits, they are a stark contrast, to the otherwise plain store interior.
Updike, John. “A&P”. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Eds. R.V. Cassill and Richard Bausch. Shorter Sixth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000. 864 - 869.
In John Updike’s “A&P”, the revolution of the young people of the current age against authority is explored and explained. “A&P” reveals the shift from conservative and deferential to avant-garde and disrespectful. Through the observation of the behavior of the characters in the story, one can receive a clear picture of the evolution of the sexual revolution that has come in this age. Sammy is the first character that is introduced, he is the protagonist and narrator of the story. Stoksie and Lengel are next, Stoksie is a fellow store clerk with Sammy as well as a good friend and Lengel is the manager of the store. Finally, Queenie is introduced. “A&P” begins with Sammy noticing these three girls that come into the store in nothing but their bathing suits. Sammy then proceeds to analyze each of the girls bodies, finally coming to rest on the leader of the group, his favorite, who he affectionately names to himself, “Queenie”. Although Sammy and Stoksie joke back and forth about the girls sexiness, he is privately revolted by the butchers bluntly ogling the girls as they search for whatever they wish to purchase. Throughout this recounting of the experience, one begins to wonder, when did girls become pieces of meat to be observed and handled by men? They used to be cherished and protected as they should be. The sexual revolution of the past and current decades have changed all of that.
Two Works Cited John Updike’s story, "A&P," starts off: "In walks three girls in nothing but bathing suits," and that pretty much sums it all up (Updike 1026). In the story, not only are the girls in bathing suits looked upon as sex objects, but other women are negatively viewed as witches, farm animals, or slaves. This story is about how a young man in the early 1960’s viewed women as a whole, including his own mother.
In the short story A&P by John Updike, the story is told in a first person narrative of a teenage boy working as a cashier in an A&P grocery store on a hot summer day. The story begins with the teenage boy named Sammy becoming preoccupied by a group of three teenage girls that walk into the grocery store wearing bathing suits. Sammy admires the girl's beauty as most nineteen year old adolescent boys would, in a slightly lewd and immature nature. His grammar is flawed and he is clearly not of an upper-class family, his job appears to be a necessity for a son of a family that is not well off. The name he gives the girl who seems to be the object of his desire, Queenie, portrays a social difference from himself. Sammy further imagines the differences in class and living style when he describes Queenie's voice as "kind of tony, the way it ticked over 'picked up' and 'snacks'." He imagines her with aristocratic home life in describing “her father and the other men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow ties and the women were in sandals picking up herring snacks on toothpicks off a big glass plate and they were holding drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them."Sammy compares his own parents occasions, where they serve their guests "lemonade and if it's a real racy affair Schlitz in tall glasses with 'They'll Do It Every Time' cartoons stenciled on."
A & P is a store in the neighborhood more like a supermarket. The major activities that are taking place in the A & P are shopping and buying of goods and items. The author, Updike narrates a story that is happening in the A & P stores where three girls come in to get some shopping items. However, it appears that there are some norms that the society expects one to have and follow while carrying out different tasks. It is no exceptional to A & P as when the three girls come in the store; they immediately catch the attention of all the individuals in the premise. Chivalry in the modern world involves the exploration of characters that are upheld high in the society and those that do not bias. Updike explores the story and happenings in A & P
Sammy, the protagonist in John Updike’s “A&P,” is a dynamic character because he reveals himself as an immature, teenage boy at the beginning of the story and changes into a mature man at the end. The way Sammy describes his place of work, the customers in the store, and his ultimate choice in the end, prove his change from an immature boy to a chivalrous man. In the beginning, he is unhappy in his place of work, rude in his description of the customers and objectification of the three girls, all of which prove his immaturity. His heroic lifestyle change in the end shows how his change of heart and attitude transform him into mature young man.
Porter, M. Gilbert. "John Updike's 'A & P': The Establishment and an Emersonian Cashier." English Journal 61 (Nov. 1972): 1155-1158. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Anna J. Sheets. Vol. 27. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 13 Apr. 2011.
Unlike many of the short stories we read, “A&P” by John Uplike displays the familiar effects of anti-Feminism and unnecessary conformity in both female and male characters. The story is placed in the 1960’s in a grocery store on a sunny afternoon. Three young, beautiful ladies walk in wearing their bathing suits and begin stir up controversy in the quite store. Even though none of the three girls have done anything wrong still everyone working and shopping in the store, with the exception of Sammy and Stokesie, seem in some ways disgusted with the girls attire. Of course this affects me and other young women; knowing that in the 1960’s women were treated with disrespect about their bodies and are still today treated this way. A mixture of bland setting, contrasting characters and a fairly uneventful plot the story unravels into a powerful story that brings out the negative and anti-feminism attitudes in a corrupt society.
People often take their place in society for granted. They accept that position into which they are born, grow up in it, and pass that position on to their children. This cycle continues until someone is born who has enough vision to step out of his circle and investigate other ways of life in which he might thrive. One such person is embodied in the character of Sammy in A&P, by John Updike. Sammy is the narrator of the story and describes an incident in the store where he encounters a conflict between the members of two completely different worlds the world that he was born into and the world of a girl that captures his mind. Through his thoughts, attitudes, and actions, Sammy shows that he is caught between the two worlds of his customers at the A&P.
In the stories written by John Updike and Jamaica Kincaid, both are completely different in terms of plot and the manner in which each were written, however through the elements of character and theme, the two can be closely associated to one another. By looking further into stories one will find that there is usually more than what meets the eye as illustrated in “Girl” and “A&P.”
John Updike's A&P provides numerous perspectives for critical interpretation. His descriptive metaphors and underlying sexual tones are just the tip of the iceberg. A gender analysis could be drawn from the initial outline of the story and Sammy's chauvinism towards the female. Further reading opens up a formalist and biographical perspective to the critic. After several readings I began seeing the Marxist perspective on the surreal environment of A&P. The economic and social differences are evident through Sammy's storytelling techniques and even further open up a biographical look at Updike's own view's and opinions. According to an essay posted on the internet Updike was a womanizer in his own era and displayed boyish immaturity into his adulthood. A second analysis of this story roots more from a reader-response/formalist view. Although Sammy centered his dramatization around three young females, more specifically the Queen of the trio, it was a poignant detailed head to toe description of scene. I'll touch on that later.