English Literature Journey

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

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

The short story “A&P” written by John Updike, is about three girls who change Sammy’s life. The three girls came from the beach and are not dressed properly to enter a grocery store called A&P. Sammy, the main character, is a check out clerk, and observes every detail about the girls. Sam even gives each of the girls a name. His favorite is “Queenie.” Sammy is obviously the type of guy who doesn’t get a lot of girls. Sam has a conflict of person vs. society. Because of his dead end job, obsession with Queenie, and his noble act to save the girls from embarrassment, Sammy has a conflict between himself and society.

As I look back on my English 101 experience, I have come to the conclusion that I have learned many new things that have improved my abilities as a writer. I have learned some new techniques that have improved my ways of approaching an essay. I learned all about the rhetorical appeals and how to apply them in my writing and how to look for them in a essay written by a author. I have also learned how to argue both sides of a argument, and how to look for reliable sources and to properly quote and site the author of the essay. I feel as if I have become a better writer and my improved writing skills are shown within each essay.

English in its entirety can be simply described as author, biologist and physician, Lewis Thomas had once said, “We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people, we read the poetry; we meditate over the literature; we play the music; we change our minds; we reach an understanding. Society evolves this way, not by shouting each other down, but by the unique capacity of unique, individual human beings to comprehend each other” (Thomas 120). The impact literature can bring onto others is simply amazing and is a gift that should be shared with everyone. This spring semester has quickly broadened my perspective. Being that this is my freshman year in college I prodded around ideas of what majors I had interests in. I

The short story “A&P” by John Updike is one of the most captivating short stories full of actions from the first words when the three girls dressed in bathing suits enter the A&P to when they are leaving in a hurry followed by the unexpected quitting of Sammy. It is very hard to predict what happens next and the whole story is filled with suspense right from the beginning to the end when the reader is left wondering what will happen to Sammy. The whole story is told from Sammy’s point of view and it shows the naivety of young people who often do things out of emotions instead of reason. Updike’s choice of characters is very exciting and the roles they are given suit them and bring out the intended meaning. Unlike Sammy

In “A&P”, John Updike uses compelling diction, language, and description to enhance the perspective of Sammy within the story and his final decision to quit his job. The use of imagery within the supermarket develops the environment Sammy worked in to a greater extent and painted diverse pictures of the customers. The derogatory descriptions of Lengel and some customers was also significant in terms of revealing Sammy’s emotions about his job at A&P. The nature of the situation with the girls and descriptive language of the customers and environment were also significant factors.A spontaneous effort to portray Sammy’s power and independence was a significant aspect Updike made more interesting by implementing dialogue, diction, and theme.

This essay originally titled Studying Literature in Grade 12, has an abundance of information regarding and convincing the readers that the grade twelve English course should be composed of Canadian literature. The grammar in this essay however, was weak. The subject did not agree to their pronouns, making many sentences awkward. Overall, improvements could have been made. Some of these include MLA format, the title, introduction paragraph, grammar, punctuation and the citation format.

Love, disillusion, religion… every story has its own theme and its author leads the readers all the way to its understanding. The short story “A&P” is not an exception of this. Written by John Updike and published in the New Yorker in 1961, it tells the story of Sammy, a 19 years old cashier in an A&P grocery store who is amazed by the journey of three girls that enter the store dressed only in bikinis. The story is narrated by Sammy himself; therefore, the readers can almost palpate the narrator’s innermost thoughts. Since the girls were improperly dressed, Lengel, the manager of the store, rebuked them. Sammy decided to defend the girls and quit his job to catch their attention. But this immature act will have a long-term consequence for this boy. The theme of A&P is led by the significance of its setting, the use of symbolism, and the characteristics of its main character.

Coming from CP World Voices to Honors English II pushed me to work hard as a result of my fear of falling behind. However, the jump made me grow as a writer; my strength in analyzing literary texts grew and so did my love for the literary works we read. Because this class pushed me to become a more focused and serious writer I have experienced many pivotal moments that caused me to become more aware of my strengths and weaknesses. Looking back on the work we have covered this year I have concluded that my pivotal moments were a series of realizations that came in intervals. Close to the beginning of the year, I discovered that I enjoyed understanding and analyzing literary works to the smallest detail. To successfully do so I focused on my

     As writers, many students write to the expectations of their professors and not to their fullest potential. Throughout English 101 I had been writing only to please my professor or to fill the basic requirement to pass English. I always felt that my writing ability was never enough for my professors throughout the previous years. They always wanted clear and concise essays, which for some reason was unreachable by me. However, starting college and taking English 101 helped me with my weaknesses and changed my technique of writing essays. My experience in English 101 taught me to write to my fullest potential and to write what I felt; rather then writing what was required.

I used to consider writing as tumble words from your mind, write, read it through, fix minor mistakes, and done. However, you rarely get successful. The truth is many students, including myself, struggle with starting to write a word, or getting stuck in the middle without knowing the main point of the writing. After completing English 101, I can explain the writing process, evaluate the strengths of my essay, and identify my weaknesses.

The course definitely changed the way I approached writing a paper. One day in lecture you quoted Ernest Hemmingway saying, “The first draft of anything is shit.” This changed the way I approached and wrote papers. I used to start papers the night before, barely look over them and making few changes. This course encouraged me to outline, write a rough draft and constantly review then finalization the paper. Peer review before this class I though was pointless because most student hardly pay attention to the paper and usually wrote “good job.” The students in the class actually read my paper and gave honest feedback and ways to improve it. Also to have a teacher read your draft and give feedback with what is wrong and ways to help the quality of the paper helped greatly. This English class was definitely different than high school English.

At first, I wasn’t sure what exactly the story would be when it came to “A&P” by John Updike (1961). The way that it began definitely had that feel of you’re the character whom is narrating the story. You “see” things from their view. When the manager told the underdressed young ladies that they weren’t at the beach it caused some embarrassment (Updike 94). Although they were shopping in swimsuits, the manager made it a point to make it seem as if they were shopping nude. He had said that the stores policy stated you must be decently dressed, as in having your shoulders covered (Updike 95). Sammy, the narrator of the story and a cashier decided to quit working for the company after the manager refused to apologize for embarrassing the women who we also paying customers. Did Sammy’s choice to quit over that have any effect on how the manager would treat people later on? Likely not. It’s likely he was very set in his way, he followed what the policy had said. Sammy also quit on a whim in hopes to catch the attention of the girls, to be seen as their “hero” (Updike 95) and standing up for them.

English as a medium of instruction has developed as a global trend for a range of reasons. Nowadays EMI is truly a global phenomenon. In this literature review, I look at the historical backgrounds of EMI in three periods prior to a global phenomenon. What is more, I reflect upon the current developments of EMI at tertiary education focusing on the spread of EMI into the global universities, EMI in European universities, EMI in Asian universities and EMI in Thai universities. In each section, I link the current literature review to my initial research at the end of the sections in order to form my research grounds.