John Updike's Short Story A & P

The short story “A&P” written in 1961 by New Yorker, John Updike was written to picture an image in readers mind on the judgment he portrayed at the grocery store. Updike, known as Sammy in the short story, immediately judged three teenage girls who walked into their store on what they were wearing and how they were carrying their selves. He then later found himself becoming defensive when his store manager, Lengel, approached the girls on the bathing suites they were wearing in the store which was said to be against story policy. Sammy did not like Lengel approaching them and made a compulsive decision to quit his job. Sammy knew the position he was putting himself in but chose to stick with it. John Updike uses Symbolism, Imagery, and Similes in “A&P” to

Stephen R. Covey said, “Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.” In today’s society, many people put work and career pursuits at the top of their metaphorical list of priorities. In a world driven a million miles an hour by commercial success, it is a wonder anyone has time to “stop and smell the roses” with the people they care about. In “Contents of a Dead Man’s Pockets”, Jack Finney expresses the importance of enjoying life rather than chasing fruitless ambition through extensive symbolism and a touch of satire.

The plot in each of these short stories focuses on normal American, middle-class life. “A&P” is about a young man that does not want to conform to society and what others want him to do. Sammy deviates from the social norm by quitting his job at the A&P while attempting to defend the girls wearing bathing suits. M. Gilbert Porter wrote an essay in The English Journal called “John Updike’s ‘A&P’: The Establishment and an Emersonian Cashier”. In this essay, he states that “Updike reveals the sensitive character of a nineteen-year-old grocery store clerk named Sammy, who rejects the standards of the A&P and in doing so commits himself to a kind of individual freedom” (Porter 1155). Porter is describing Sammy as a martyr for quitting his job because he believes that the standards of the A&P are unjust. He also states that Sammy

Renowned American film producer Cecil B. DeMille once said, “What I have crossed out I didn't like. What I haven't crossed out I'm dissatisfied with.” (“Cecil B. DeMille Quotes.” brainyquote.com. Brainy Quote, n.d. Web. 05 Oct.2012.) This persistent feeling of dissatisfaction is suggested in Christopher Taggi’s “95,” in which the protagonist is discontent with his current life condition and keeps driving on the highway to look for better opportunities. In fact, the author points out that in contemporary society people are dissatisfied because of their insatiable desire for wanting more. This sad reality is illustrated by the protagonist’s

A&P is the story of a nineteen-year-old boy, Sammy, who is fighting against the expectation to blindly accept the social norms of society and follow the dull, routine life set before him. Sammy currently works as a cashier at the local A&P supermarket and describes the customers shopping within A&P as sheep, houseslaves and pigs being loaded into a chute. He yearns to be something more than a chain climbing employee like his co-worker, Stokesie, or his boss, Lengel, who haggles over cabbages and hides in the manager’s office all day.

The short story, “A&P”, by John Updike, gives readers a glance at the life of a teenage boy, Sammy, who makes a rash decision after encountering three girls at the local grocery store. The theme of “A&P” is that desire for a new life can be dangerous when it provokes irrational action. Updike effortlessly conveys this theme through his use of setting, characterization, and symbolism throughout the short story.

The setting of the short story, “A&P” by John Updike is a key factor in understanding why Sammy decides to quit his job as a cashier. Sammy know’s that this will only make his life harder, but he continues to reject the A&P in this story. In the story, there are also things that symbolize Sammy and the store. This story also has a dramatic end. In John Updike’s short story, “A&P,” he uses the setting, symbolism, and dramatic irony to support the theme that there are consequences to a person’s actions.

In “A&P”, the author John Updike demonstrates the importance of choices and their consequences. It is important that someone considers everything that could occur before making a decision. Updike uses the characters of Sammy, the three girls in bathing suits, and Lengel in the story to show how important it is to carefully contemplate the consequences of their choices.

John Updike, one of the most forward-thinking and socially provocative writers of the 50s and 60s, is known for his “incisive presentation of the quandaries of contemporary personal and social life.” (Lawn 529) Updike graduated from Harvard University and wrote for one of the more cutting edge publications like The New Yorker- both are notoriously ahead of their time and harbor controversial ideas. In his short story “A&P”, Updike reveals a young man named Sammy in a society on the brink of a social revolution- one in which a group of girls and an innocent cashier will unknowingly lead. Updike, through symbolism and syntax, shows how the girls are leading the revolution, how Sammy is feeling the wrath of this revolution, and

“A&P” is an excellent use of biographical criticism when connecting to an author’s past. The way Updike wrote this short story proves to the reader that he can still make a connection to that younger part of himself; since the main character is about nineteen years old and the author was twenty-nine when he wrote it. While reading the story, one can already connect with the familiarity of it when the main character mentions the aggravating customer, “She’s one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows...She’d been watching cash registers forty years and probably never seen a mistake before” (Updike 1). For example, say that Updike used to

The short story “A & P” by John Updike is about a young man’s decision to stand up for others or, in the other characters’ opinions, make a foolish decision by abandoning his responsibility. At first he believes his decision is the right thing, quitting his job for how the girls were being treated. Then when he gets outside of the store, he realizes the world he just left behind, regrets his decision, and begins to question his actions. He starts to overthink what the world has to offer him, making his worldview change from underrating to overrating. His “unsure of the world’s dangers” worldview in the beginning changes to overrating the dangers of the future ahead at the end of the story causing Sammy to change throughout “A & P”.

John Updike’s ‘A&P’, is about a young man’s struggle with morality, authority, and freedom. Through a series of events Sammy witnessed injustice in his workplace leading him to quit his job. When Sammy quit his job he was taking a stand against authority because he longed for freedom from the A&P and his manager. Sammy made the leap from an adolescent, knowing little about life, into a man facing the consequences from his actions. John Updike’s use of language and actions reveal the internal struggles and relationships of a young man growing into adulthood.

"A&P" is a short story written by John Updike published in 1986 regarding society's view on the power of desire and the power of conformity interpreted though a young cashier demanding the attention of an outside group of girls. Within this story, Updike uses literary devices to clarify the theme of influence. As an example, Updike uses similes as emphasis to enhance the mood and theme of his story. "Who shook open a paper bag as gently as peeling a peach, not wanting to miss a word" (6) he wrote. The use of this literary device allows the audience to experience this emotion of freshness and distinctiveness which directly corresponds with the theme of conformity. Prior to this, the author also uses a metaphor of sheep when referring to the

A character in Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth was taught a something that they didn’t was valuable at the time, but later in life found that it was something that helped him. As we grow up we question a lot of the things that we are taught, like how is it going to help us in the future. For me it was treating others the way you want to be treated. To me I thought that we should treat others the way they treat us. My family tried to show me that that wasn’t the answer and that nothing is going to work if you don’t know how to move on from what they have done for you.

For thousands of years humanity has grappled with understanding the mystery of our existence; questions what our purpose in life is. Some become consumed with the idea of not wasting a second of the time they’ve been given, while others tend towards a more reserved, neutral lifestyle. Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem, “Ulysses,” directly attacks the idleness of a mundane lifestyle while promoting the idea of not letting life waste away through exploration of the life of Ulysses, the mythical greek hero. Comparatively, W.H. Auden’s, “The Unknown Citizen,” emphasizes the pointlessness and monotony of day-to-day living through satirisation of the life of an archetypal, modern individual. Upon analysis it becomes evident that Tennyson and Auden have