Literary Criticism for John Updike "A&P"

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

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 story “A&P” by John Updike, the main character Sammy is portrayed as a typical young male. When the three young females enter the store, he is quickly distracted from his duties. As he watches the young girls move throughout the store, he describes each of their bodies in detail giving away his overwhelming sexual awareness. Sammy is so distracted by these “bathing beauties” that he rings up some old bat’s item twice and makes her angry. It is made quite evident that Sammy is finely attuned to each and every movement of these young ladies’ as they amble down each and every aisle throughout the store.

“A&P” reveals the misogyny men hold in the story; two characters of this specific category are Sammy and Mr. Lengel. Misogyny is unveiled in the male characters Sammy and Mr Lengel supported by

The story "A&P" emphasizes the viewpoints of people living in a small town. John Updike's carefully crafted sexual diction is subtly hidden throughout his short story, demonstrating how young girls are sexualized with phrases such as "two smoothest scoops of vanilla" and "a sweet broad soft-looking can". Sammy, a cashier working at A&P, describes the three girls that walk into the store, wearing only their bathing suits. He expresses his thoughts of the girls and their bodies, using specific words to do so. When the three young girls walk into the A&P, they grasp the attention of many customers and workers.

Throughout John Updike’s short story a first person point of view is used to tell the tale of Sammy and his encounter with the three girls in the A&P store that ultimately led to his own independence. With a deliberately casual and poetically descriptive voice, Sammy alternates between common slang and sharp wit throughout the story that makes him a rather unreliable narrator to the person reading. Because his point of view is so limited, the reader is forced to go back and reread Sammy’s opinions to get an understanding of the story’s overall theme of independence.

After reading “A&P” by John Updike and Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls”, a centralized theme arose. Each story’s protagonist demonstrates a unique internal struggle centered on the restrictions society places upon them. Even though the short stories written by John Updike and Alice Munro are remarkably different from each other, it is possible for a reader to interpret similarities between the two.

A&P by John Updike and A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner are two short stories which reveal to be different, odd and even bizarre in several aspects; conversely, on the other hand, they are very similar. One similarity for John Updike, William Faulkner and many other authors, is being that they follow the three-act structure, which helps to write their story more effectively. Furthermore, in analyzing A&P and A Rose for Emily, we see that both share an “overarching” theme; however, their symbolism and conflicts are different, they still follow the three-act structure; finally, in the end, you will see which one I infer does a better job compared to the other.

As young children, girls and boys are taught to be very different from the clothing worn to the way to speak. Females have always been treated more fragile than males for the simple fact that is what children are taught from an early age. The short story, “A&P,” by John Updike shows this in the best of ways. Updike’s message in the short story is that women are meant to be admired and protected. The admiration and protection of the women is evident because when Sammy admires the beauty of the girls and protects them from Lengel after he embarrasses them.

In the story A & P by John Updike, the author sets the story in a very ordinary place where everyday people go shopping for their groceries, in a market known as A & P. Updike’s style within the story shows many aspects of ordinary life. For example, in the first sentence of the story, the narrator Sammy uses incorrectly the word walks, “In the walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits.” This grammatical mistake has help create a more casual yet realistic narrator, by implicating that within one’s thoughts no one will care about those language mistakes. Another very realistic scene in the story is when Sammy is ringing some items to an older customer and mistakenly rings the HiHo crackers twice. The lady starts complaining to Sammy and once he got all her goods in the bag the lady snorts back at Sammy. Then he goes on comparing the old customer to a witch by thinking, “. . . if she’d been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem.” Salem refers to a series of persecutions against people during the early 1690’s who were accused of witchcraft and ended in executions by hanging them. Through

In this “A&P”, Updike decides to write a story with a point of view of a young man. This short story may not be comparable to some masterpieces in short stories, but this story has its own uniqueness because of its simplicity. One drawback about the story is that when Updike starts “A&P” it doesn’t tell the readers what its going to be about, he goes straight into it, and it takes a while for the reader to understand what they are actually reading, but when they do, it is a very enjoyable for readers to read, even young readers will find fun to read.

The short story Up in Michigan is one of Hemingway's earliest works, believed to be one of the earliest works of Hemingway after he arrived in Paris in December of 1921 (Oliver 14). The story was first published in 1923 in Three Stories and Ten Poems. As with most first works some scholars would argue all first works the story is believed to be derivative. The characters seem to have been plucked from Hemingway's childhood (Svoboda and Waldmeir 63). A boyhood friend of Hemingway's was named Wesley Dilworth and his parents were named Jim and Liz Dilworth (Comley and Scholes 29). Scholarly reviews led to the discovery of pre-publication typescripts of Up in Michigan. Interestingly, a pre-publication version of the story begins: "Wesley Dilworth got the dimple in his chin from his mother. Her name had been Liz Buell. Jim Dilworth married her when he came to Horton's Bay from Canada and bought the mill with A. J. Stroud" (KL/EH 800, 1, as cited in Johnson). From this excised paragraph, readers are able to see how Hemingway invented the fictionalized story from the bit of that he drew from his early years (Benson).

Written in 1961, A&P is a short story by the American author John Updike representing the life of a young adult from then. Set in the same time period as when it is written, A&P depicts the changing of values that happened in those years as well the consequences of these new ways.

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.

The literary question I will be answering is from page twenty- three. The question asks, “What is at stake for the protagonist in the conflict?”(Gioia 23) The short story I have decided to work with for this particular assignment is “A&P” by John Updike, which spans from page seventeen to twenty-one.