The setting of 'A & P'; is quite usual for a regular grocery store on a weekday. The town is north of Boston, five miles from the beach. Since the store is right in the middle of town, banks and churches and the newspaper store can been seen from the front doors. The day is Thursday, so there is not very much business. Outside, the sun can be seen on the pavement. The main character, Sammy, is almost nineteen years old and his coworker, Stokesie, is twenty-two and married. The manager, Lengel, is gray and teaches Sunday school. The setting in John Updike's story, 'A & P';, is used as a way to show humor and realism. Updike uses the setting in a way to show humor. In the beginning, Sammy is ringing up an …show more content…
The girls also pass a 'Pyramid of Diet Delight peaches'; (Updike 318). The reason the girls even make the journey into the store is for a can of 'Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream'; (Updike 319). The sounds made by the cash register also make the story have a sense of realism as Updike sings the cash register song: I go through the punches, 4,9, GROC, TOT- it's more complicated than you think, and after you do it often enough, it begind to make a little song, that you hear words to, in my case 'Hello (bing) there, you (gung) hap-py pee-pul (splat)!';-the splat being the drawer flying out. (319) The most realistic point in the story is when the three girls are described. First, the short one is seen by Sammy as Updike so explains: 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 tops of the backs of her legs. (316) Then, Updike describes the tall one as being: [W]ith black hair that hadn't quite frizzed right, and one of these sunburns right across under the eyes, and a chin that was too long-you know, the kind of girl other girls think is very 'striking'; and
John Updike, who was 29 at the time when he wrote “A & P,” narrates his story from the point of view of a 19 year old boy. The narration of the story of “A & P” illustrates the scene of the grocery store in which the teenage boy, Sammy, is a cashier who witnesses everything that goes on during the day.
For one thing, the theme is shown all throughout the short story heavily. The clerk in the grocery store, Sammy, shares his every thought about the girls as they strut around the
Sammy begins the story by describing the three girls in bathing suits who have walked into the A & P grocery store. The girl who catches his attention is a chunky girl in a plaid green two-piece swimsuit. As Sammy continues to observe the girls, his interest seems to focus only on the girl who leads the other two into the store. Sammy refers to the girl he likes as "Queenie",someone showing poise and leadership, while the other girls
When three young teenage girls enter the store wearing nothing but bathing suits, things begin to change for Sammy. Sammy takes notice of the actions of the girls; how they go against the normal “traffic flow” of the supermarket and break the social rules of society with their attire. It is these attributes that attract Sammy to them, as they represent freedom and escape from the life he finds himself in. When Lengel approaches them and reprimands them for what they are wearing, Sammy quits in the hopes of becoming the girls unsuspected hero.
John Updike's story "A&P" talks about a 19-year old lad, Sammy, who has a job at the local grocery store, the A&P. Sammy works at the register in the store and is always observing the people who walk in and out each day. On this particular day that the story takes place, Sammy is caught off guard when a cluster of girls walk into the store wearing just their bathing suits. This caught Sammy's attention because the nearest beach is five miles away and he could not figure out why they would still be in their suits. Sammy continues to overlook the girls in the store throughout their endeavor to pick up some item's that they were sent in for. While they are wandering around the store Sammy watches the reactions of other customers, is yelled at
Life is always about making important decisions that could change your life completely. Like the story A&P, Sammy made a huge decision to quit his job due to his boss being rude to three young girls wearing bathing suits. John Updike used several literary elements to make the story stand out and for people to relate to Sammy. The most important elements that is used in this story is setting, point of view, and characters.
Updike's use of setting helps to contribute to the development of the theme of the story by making the reader understand the conformity of the society in which Sammy is yearning to escape. The story, “A&P”, takes place in the local A&P grocery store in the 1960s, a time in which it was abnormal to break free from the social norms of the
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
In John Updike’s short story “A & P”, a dynamic and round character expresses his subjective attitude towards his views, a plot twist causes him to realize his future. Sammy an opinionated cashier at A & P grocery store does not agree with his Lengel, his manager after he reprimands a particular group of customers at the store. Sammy’s further actions cause him to face the true reality of his future.
Updike's "A & P" is rich in symbolism and begins in the very first paragraph. Sammy is eyeing the three bikini-clad girls who walk into his supermarket where he is a checker. His reverie is interrupted, however, by a "witch" whose "feathers" Sammy has to smooth. The older generation are typically symbolized in negative terms throughout the story, those women who cannot and will not understand youth.
John Updike presents significant items to represent certain points in the story like the girls bathing suits, the herring snacks, and the sheep. When the girls walk into the A&P, they caused a disruption mainly because of what they were wearing, bathing suits. During that time, women were expected to be fully clothed when entering a store or else they drew attention to their sexuality, which Sammy noticed quickly. As everyone reacted to their bathing suits it later represented a kind of freedom to Sammy. After Lengal body shames them saying, “Girls, I don't want to argue with you. After this come in here with your shoulders covered. It's our policy” (Updike 20), it crushed Sammy’s freedom feeling, so he reacted. Sammy also feels the contrast between the girls and the sheep as they try to purchase
The girls, despite their obvious fashion faux-pas, carry themselves with a certain confidence and individuality that is rare in this society. Updike has Sammy refer to the other customers as sheep, pigs, house slaves, and even as having a fuselage- revealing how ‘empty’ these citizens are. The references to sheep are clear symbols for the conformity of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The trend (or revolution) towards non-conformity is quickly approaching as the three girls are leaders of this new movement.
Sammy is shallow and sexist in the way he has named these young women according to his first impression of their bodies and behaviors. Patrick W. Shaw notes that "Sammy knows what is on each aisle in the store and constantly thinks of what is inside bottles, cans, and jars; but he has no idea what is inside the girls, no sensitivity to their psychology or sexual subtlety. His awareness stops with their sweet cans and ice-cream breasts" (322). Sammy further demonstrates his childishness and chauvinism by commenting on the mental abilities of the girls: "You never know for sure how girls' minds work (do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?)" (27).
Sammy faces the decision of staying at his job or leaving. His parents are friends with the manager of the store, Lengel. One day three girls walk into the store wearing nothing but bathing suits. Seeing it is a slow day, Sammy observes the girls as they go through the store and to his luck come to his check out station. Lengel then sees them at checkout and confronts the girls to tell them about the store’s policy that they should be dressed decently upon entering the store, “‘Girls, I don’t want to argue with you. After this come in here with your shoulders covered. It’s our policy’” (Updike). This is where Sammy has his transitioning experience. Upon hearing this conversation, Sammy tries be a hero for the girls by making the decision to quit his job, “The girls, and who’d blame, them are in a hurry to get out, so I say ‘I quit’ to Lengel quick enough for them to hear,
Session 3: T 1/28: Updike, “A&P” : What i think of the story is that i was anxious and confused at the same time in the beginning. It started off to me asking myself, “What is going on?” “What is going to happen next?” “Why is Sammy admiring all three of these girls in definite detail?” What i had admired the most of this short story was, how exactly it was told. I really did not know who was telling the story until mid-way of this selection. I also admired the fact that Updike was a bit concerned with feminism and how he made both Lenegal and Sammy portray it through their thoughts and perspectives. But other than that from beginning to end i