Writing Techniques In John Updike's A & P

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

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 point of view in the story is the third person because there is a narrator who

The story is written as a second person narrative. This style puts the reader in the position of the main character. We are never told the main character’s name, making it easier for the reader to relate to the character. Writing in the second person also challenges the reader, putting them in the position of the main character.

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

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.

A&P is a story about a 19 year old teenage boy that works at a supermarket and acts childish. In this story Sammy’s attitude is sexist and judgemental towards the customers coming in and out of the store. When the three girls walk in the store half naked with their swimsuits on, Sammy is shocked because he hasn't seen anyone wear swimsuits in public place before. The girls are in the aile’s shopping and Sammy is examining them to see how they shop and how they act, he says “ Sheep's pushing their carts down the aisle” (Updike page 17 A&P) he refers to the girls as sheep’s.

In short stories, sometimes the main character may grow and change into a more mature individual. While In other occasions the characters remain the same. In the short story of "A & P," by In John Updike, the dynamic protagonist is Sammy, a young teenager who has his first job working at a small grocery store in New England. Sammy is transitioning from childhood to adulthood and through his words and actions, we discovered that he does not acquire the best characteristics which include being immature, judgmental, pervert and impulsive.

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

Bentley, Greg W.. "Sammy's Erotic Experience: Subjectivity and Sexual Difference in John Updike's 'A & P'." Journal of the Short Story In English 43 (2004): 121-141. Gale Group. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.

On the surface, the hero of John Updike's much-anthologized short story "A&P" does not seem like a hero on the level of an Odysseus or a Hercules. Sammy is a cashier at a local grocery store. However, when three girls wearing bathing suits enter the A&P, Sammy begins to experience a call to action. For the first time in his life, he takes a stand when he feels as if the pretty girls are being treated with a lack of respect. Sammy feels the first stirrings of rebellion within him, as he chafes against the constraints of his life. Campbell divides the three parts of the hero's quest into a circular journey of departure, initiation, and return. Over the course of "A&P" Sammy makes his 'departure' into the world of the hero.

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

A&P, a short story by John Updike, would best be analyzed by using the school of New Criticism and analyzing the journey Sammy, the narrator, experiences throughout the story. The school of New Criticism believes that the work’s overall meaning depends solely on the text in front of the reader. This is the primary way that students are taught to analyze literature in high school, or early in college. Using this school, there are many different elements to evaluate or interpret; including theme, allusion, and point of view. When analyzing the hero’s journey, a reader should look at seven characteristics. By looking at these seven characteristics of the story, the reader will be able to see into the mind of narrator and see what he/she is going through emotionally and physically. The point of using these two techniques to analyze this story is to gain insight into the writers’ and characters’ minds and see what drives them to do what they do.