A & P By John Updike

In the short story “A & P,” the author, John Updike depicts a grocery store called “A & P” in a small town of North Boston, Massachusetts. The store is located on a point about four to five miles from a hot, sunny beach. Because of the hot summer weather, you are going to see bathing suits, flip flops, swimming trunks, or sunglasses. The story starts with three teenage girls that entered and stroll around the store barefooted along with their bathing suits on. The story vividly illustrates the characterization, conflicts, and imagery based on the clothing in which Updike uses to communicate the theme of the story. Updike shows the readers how Sammy was attracted to those three girls who however, were not obviously interested in him. He took no initiative to stop and think before he made his grand final decision. Likewise, his manager, Lengel watches his whole life change and unravels in seconds based on his immaturity. At the end of the story, Sammy perceives that the whole world is going to be hard on him; also reality sets in because he now has to expect

In the writing of the story, A&P, John Updike gave beauty to the peculiarity of adolescence revealed in a peculiar story set in a convenience store. Updike equipped the story with a first-person narrator, dramatic irony, and an interesting setting. Those devices served to realistically portray the naive tone of a lost, soon-to-be adult.

Updike’s “A & P” takes place in a grocery store North of Boston. Sammy, the narrator of the story, describes a summer’s day and is first describing three girls that walk into the store. Sammy’s statement in the first sentence already starts to sexualize these girls by describing their body parts, “In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits.[...]The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece. 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. (1)” Around this time during the 1960’s men were deemed to be the heroes and the breadwinners. Women were to be modest and dress as so. As for Sammy a very hormonal teen, visualizing three young girls in bikinis and one of the girl’s he calls Queenie --whom he finds attractive, was enjoying every bit of it except for their manager Lengel, who scolds at the young girls’, informing them on the store policy.“Lengel's pretty dreary, teaches Sunday school and the rest, but he doesn't miss that much. He

John Updike is considered one of the greatest writers in modern American history. He is known for the idea that seemingly ordinary aspects of American life are actually quite fascinating. He wanted readers to see the beauty and magic of life, so he tried to describe everyday things using the most clear but beautiful language possible. Many of Updike’s pieces are drawn from his own life such as his marriage and his boyhood, as shown in three of his short stories: “A&P”, “Ace in the Hole”, and “Pigeon Feathers”. Updike’s narrative technique is explored through the analysis of plot structure, thematic patterning, and irony in these three short stories.

Women try to erase any unwanted features from themselves that appear as unacceptable in men’s modern society today. For example ; moles, body hair, acne and blemishes, body fat, and any other visible ‘flaws’ we contain. As far the fashion industry goes we have chosen to think that as long as what we are wearing can be considered ‘sexy’ and ‘feminine’ that it is acceptable despite if it makes us uncomfortable. We choose to wear tight clothing and shoes that constrain our movement. Our beauty desires that we constantly try to feed consumes our lives, health, well-being and finances. The dedication and alterations women have made to eating less, living, moving, and speaking differently is to satisfy the stereotypes and sexual desires that live

In John Updike’s short story “A&P,” the main character, Sammy, is in a conflict against society that will determine whether he becomes an independent or a conformist. When Sammy sees a group of three girls in swimsuits enter, he is surprised by their boldness to willingly dress in such a fashion; however, he is not opposed to it. Contrastingly, those around him, mostly middle aged housewives, seem to be quite miffed and taken aback. Updike writes, “You could see them, when Queenie’s white shoulders dawned on them, kind of jerk, or hop, or hiccup, but their eyes snapped back to their own baskets and on they pushed… But there was no doubt, this jiggled them” (164-65). Furthermore, this represents the generational divide and external conflict that Sammy is involved in. While both Sammy and Queenie see nothing wrong with wearing a swimsuit in public, people did not typically wear

In John Updike’s coming of age story “A&P,” the protagonist Sammy sees what he believes to be an unfair act to three teenage girls in bikini in the grocery store. He makes an immature decision and quits in front of his manager that decided to address the girls about their clothing choice in front of the entire grocery store, instead of talking to them in private. Unfortunately, the teenage girls do not notice Sammy’s heroic act, and he is left alone in the parking lot to face the repercussions of his childish actions. John Updike chooses to write in first-person, so the reader gets to know the narrator’s real character. In his short story “A&P,” John Updike demonstrates that Sammy is an immature character immaturity from his disrespectful personality, judgmental attitude, and misogynist beliefs.

Everybody nowadays wear what they like to wear in public. They do not care about how other people think of their dress. Besides, it is people’s rights to dress themselves freely. However, in the story A&P, written by John Updike, people tend to be more conservative about dressing. The story happens in 1961 in a small town of northern Boston. At that time, people value conformity as their social norm. Main character Sammy works in A&P, and he despises people who act the same. One day, three girls come to the store, and they get insulted by manager Lengel because they just wear bathing suits. Sammy quits the job in A&P because he tries to defend for the girls. In fact, he is motivated by the girls to go against the social norm. After he witnesses

The setting of “A+P,” is a small northern town on the east coast. An era when modesty and dignity was the bases for common culture. The writer lets the reader know it’s about five miles from the beach, and the author Updike is known for growing up in the north east of the United States. The small community is one where everyone is acquainted with each other and in a post war era. The abundance of food and goods at the A+P is indicative of a time after the Second World War and the nation was flooded with products again. This would make the reader believe this to be the late 50’s to early 60’s. If this situation occurred in the year 2012 the young women would have been ignored for the most part. The purchase of herring in sour cream would have

Now-a-days, you can’t find appropriate clothing for your children because all stores are selling short-shorts and crop tops for 12-year-olds. This issue is contradicting; girls are being sexualized by being told not to wear clothes that show their skin, yet the only clothes that are currently being sold are clothes that only sexualize girls even more by showing too much skin that doesn’t fit their age group. Orenstein also argues that, “ For today’s girls, sexy appearance has been firmly conflated with strong womanhood.” Meaning, instead of having a princess birthday party at the park, preschoolers are now having mani-pedi spa birthday parties; or how the Elementary school cheer dance routine is more provocative; or when 9-year-olds are taught “all the ticks of beauty.” In our defence, when society depicts young women as sexual objects, they make young girls think that their beauty is more important than their brains(hence the reason why you can easily mistake a 13-year-old for a

In "A&P" John Updike makes effective use of symbols to reveal Sammy’s thinking throughout this story. One of the symbols in this story is bathing suits. The story starts with the three girls just wearing their bathing suits walk into A&P. “In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits”(1). In fact, the bathing suits attract attention to the girls’ sexuality, which Sammy immediately remarks of. These attires are so different with the regular attire of the “sheep” and housewives who enter the store. The bathing suits the girls wear symbolizes the freedom that the girls show without regards the social rules of the small town. In spite of that, Sammy thinks that the girls’ attires are

In a continuing attempt to reveal this societal conflict, Updike introduces the character of Lengel, the manager. He accosts the girls and starts to make a scene accusing them of being indecent: “‘Girls, I don’t want to argue with you. After this come in here with your shoulders covered. It’s our policy.’ He turns his back. That’s policy for you. Policy is what the kingpins want. What others want is juvenile delinquency” (Updike, 600). When the store manager confronts three girls in swimsuits because of their indecency (lack of proper clothes), they are forced to leave humiliated. At this moment Sammy makes the choice to quit his job in protest of the manager’s handling of the situation. In his mind, and arguably in John Updike’s mind, the standards of walking into a grocery store in a bathing suit and humiliating someone in front of other people are both unacceptable. This part of the story is pivotal for one main reason: a voice in the business community is speaking. As a manager at A & P, Lengel is the voice of The Establishment and guards the community ethics (Porter, 321). Queenie’s (the ringleader of the girls) blush is what moves Sammy to action. Here are three girls who came in from the beach to purchase only one thing, and this kingpin is embarrassing them in order to maintain an aura of morality, decency,

This imagery shows the kind of scandalous clothing that they were wearing giving them the power to bring attention and desire to Sammy and his coworkers. They stood no chance to these appealing looks that the girls had with the help of the bathing suits and the environment that they were in as Sammy describes “You know, it’s one thing in to have a girl in a bathing suit down on the beach, where what with the glare nobody can look at each other much anyway, and another thing in the cool of the A & P, under the fluorescent lights, against all those stacked packages, with her feet paddling along naked over our checker-board green-and-cream rubber-tile floor.” (Updike 165). This also shows that Sammy can not control himself once he unleashes his descriptive imagination when thinking about Queenie and her friends walking through the store.

John Updike’s “A&P” tells a story of young cashier’s encounter with three girls who enter the store in a manner that leads to the loss of his job. In the exposition, three girls with contrasting features make their way around the A&P and creates conflict because they are wearing nothing but bathing suits. One of the girls, who the narrator, Sammy, refers to as Queenie, has her bathing suit straps down “off her shoulders [and] looped loose around the cool tops of her arms (5).” In the rising action, their attire attracts attention from everyone in the store and, eventually, the manager address them and begins to lecture them on being “decently dressed (7)” and tells them to cover their shoulders upon their next visit. While the girls are “in a hurry to get out (7),” Sammy suddenly claims that he quits as he watches them “flicker

In either story, they seem to be objectifying women. In “A&P” it is for simply their looks the whole first part of the story is basically all just Sammy’s thoughts on how they look. “With straps pushes off, there is nothing between the top of the suit and the top of her head except just her…” (Updike, 1963, p. 2). And “She held her head so high her neck, coming out of those white shoulders, looked kind of stretched, but I didn’t mind. The longer her neck was, the more of her there was.” (Updike, 1963, p. 2). Sammy clearly thought this girl was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen and he didn’t seem to think the other girls were too bad either because he spent some time describing them too.