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Deconstruction In John Updike's A & P

1029 Words5 Pages

“A&P” by John Updike is written through the eyes of a young grocery store clerk named Sammy. While working, a group of girls walk into the store, wearing their bathing suits, causing all the workers to drool over them, but when they come to check out the manager Lengel tells them that what they are wearing is against policy. As the girls leave, embarrassed, Sammy courageously quits his job due to this incident, hoping to impress the girls, but as he walks out of the A&P he realizes that they are gone. Post-Structuralism, also known as Deconstruction, is a school of literary criticism where the reader “focuses on the inherent, internal contradictions in language and interpretation” (deconstruction). In essence, the reader must read between …show more content…

As said by Ronald E. McFarland,
The incongruity of the common HiHo crackers and a luxury hors d'oeuvres like herring snacks anticipates one aspect of the hard lesson that Sammy will learn. Queenie's brand-name symbol represents a world completely alien to that of Sammy, who visualizes her parents and their stylish friends ‘picking up herring snacks on toothpicks off a big glass plate’ (Updike 1170).
This brand-name vs. off-brand that is represented in “A&P” may be a way of Updike showing us that Sammy isn’t even on the same playing field as Queenie and the other girls.
Furthermore, Sammy goes on to imagine Queenies’ parents and friends “standing around in ice-cream coats and bow ties” and “holding drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them” (Updike 1171). Donald Grover explains …show more content…

It may be that when he “fold[s] the apron” and “drop[s] the bow tie on top of it” (Updike 1171), he is trying to become more like the girls through eliminating items of his clothing. The girls, through their bathing suits, may be representing the freedom they have, to go wherever they want to go or do whatever pleases them. It is quite the opposite for Sammy, whose work outfit may represent the freedoms he doesn’t have, possibly that his job at the A&P is his life. Thus, when he takes off his apron and bow tie, he may be desiring to become like Queenie and the rest of the girls: free. This quitting of his job may have been his desire to chase after and impress the girls, as explicitly stated, but it may also be his hope for a better life, fruitful like the girls. A life where he too can dress how he wants and do as he desires. Therefore, the girl’s clothing might not only represent a sexual appeal, but a longing for

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Irony In Sammy Updike's 'Queenie'

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Additionally, Sammy’s thoughts about “Queenie” continue to evoke some sense of irony. His depiction of “Queenie’s” “oaky hair” and her “prim face”, which he claims are add to his positive descriptions of her because she was very courageous to enter A & P with her swimsuit’s straps down (Updike 339). All this time Sammy gives us the image of a naked girl but later clothes her with confidence to enter the stores in a bathing suit. Also, Sammy falls deep in his captivation that he does not mind “Queenie’s” pale skin and continues to sexualize her as his sight moves down her body: “She held her head so high her neck, coming up out of those white shoulders, looked kind of stretched, but I didn’t mind” (Updike 339). The longer her neck is the more

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Anti-Hero In John Updike's A & P

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The use of various and different archetypes such as the threshold guardian and the defiant anti-hero in “A&P” coveys John Updike’s changing perception of women and the values in today’s society. When the reader is first introduced to Sammy, they see him observing “three girls in nothing but bathing suits” and privately starts pointing out distinct physical features such as their “sweet broad soft-looking can” and how “the third one wasn’t so tall. She was the queen.” (Updike 1). Sammy is a very atypical person and doesn’t fall under society’s norm of a gentleman or one who shows any form of chivalry towards women..

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Setting In John Updike's A & P

844 Words | 4 Pages

A&P” is a short story that is written by John Updike. It is a story that develops in setting of a grocery store (Updike, n. p). On a broader sense, the setting is a beach town, and the story majorly focusses on how ladies dress. A lot of the characters find the dressing intimidating and one goes even further to warn them about it. It is the view of this paper that the setting of the story forms the cornerstone of its development.

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An Analysis Of Porter's A & P

739 Words | 3 Pages

This analysis is eye opening because it places emphasis on some of the more minor characters, such as the housewives shopping with their hair in curlers, the woman who gets angry with Sammy after he makes an error while ringing up her groceries, and the man that Sammy labels as a bum. Porter’s analysis explains why Updike chose to include them in the story, and gives a deeper meaning to Sammy’s frustration and actions. These characters represent a “loss of individuality” (Porter 2) with their “joyless, wooden nature” (Porter 2). They symbolize the mediocrity that Sammy is accustomed to, and offer a stark contrast when compared to the bathing-suit clad Queenie. Though this part of the analysis is informative and insightful, the analysis becomes limited when it comes to Sammy’s characterization.

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Regardless the constraint he feels inside the store, A&P, Sammy simply expresses his wanting to have Queenie, who symbolises freedom due the actions she does that he considers rebellious to the principles and the ordinary. The story unfolds with Sammy noticing the three girls enter A&P “in nothing but bathing suits” and shows an immediate and strong attention to them enough to make him forget whether he rang the HiHo crackers. He begins to describe the girls and states that first girl’s “belly was still pretty pale” and that the second had “black hair that hadn't quite frizzed right”. After a short explanation of the previous girls, Sammy portrays an endless detail of the last one, whom he calls Queenie of how she “walked straight on slowly”

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1453 Words | 6 Pages

In John Updike’s short story “A&P,” Sammy is the narrator and cashier at the grocery story A&P. The author uses dynamic characters with immensely different personalities to portray conformity and rebellion in our society. Through out the story Sammy challenges conformity and social norms at his work place for personal reasons. Sammy is very bitter character and taken as a realist which fuels the story. Queenie, a rebel against conformity, sparks Sammy’s emotions after the way she is treated by his boss Langel when she walks into the grocery store with nothing but a bikini covering her skin.

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Compare And Contrast A & P And Adam Raised A Cain

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Generation gap plays a subtle role in “A&P”, whereas it serves as a cause for the regretful memories in the song lyrics. In John Updike’s “A&P”, the generation gap is first foreshadowed by the accusing customer in the first paragraph, as Sammy mocks “she'd been watching cash registers forty years and probably never seen a mistake before” (1). Sammy’s exaggeration is hereby indicative of how he perceives the older generation: discipline now connotes inflexibility, and rationality considered a conceit – all of its best features are replaced by shortcomings. The conflict reaches a boiling point in paragraph twenty-two, with Sammy quitting his job in protest to Lengel’s rebuke against the girls. When Sammy accuses Lengel by saying he “didn’t have to embarrass them” (23), Lengel gives a firm reply that “it was they who were embarrassing [them]” (24).

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The Negatively Constracted In John Updike's A & P

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In John Updike's short story "A&P," the narrator, Sammy, is negatively impacted by his human connections with the other characters in the story. Sammy's interactions with the customers and his boss at the grocery store represent a world of conformity, predictability, and boredom. However, when three young women in bathing suits enter the store, Sammy becomes infatuated with them, and his perspective shifts. The sexuality of the females in the novel causes them to become a distraction for Sammy the narrator, and when people have a physical connection instead of a personal connection, it eventually has consequences. This has a negative effect on the character.

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Sammy’s failed attempt goes unnoticed, and Lengel offers to give Sammy another chance. Sammy however, thought that taking it would be a “fatal not to go through with it. ”(Updike.19). Sammy exits the store, being jobless and failing his goal of wooing Queenie. Nonetheless, Sammy’s act of standing up for Queenie because of her attire is what makes him a hero.

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