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John Updike A & P Conflict

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A & P is a short story by John Updike written in exquisite detail. It features classic plot elements, such as the setting (A & P grocery store) and the protagonist (Sammy.) It also contains a conflict, (the scantily clad girls entering the A & P) a goal of the protagonist’s, (to impress one of the girls and hopefully win her heart) a crisis, (the manager confronting the girls and Sammy defending them) and a climax (Sammy quitting his job.) These elements all tie the story together to create plot and makes the reader increasingly curious as to how the story ends. Sammy, our protagonist and narrator, is an A & P grocery store cashier. The story and the conflict begin when three girls wearing only bathing suits enter the grocery store. These girls put his attention span at stake and immediately cause problems for him. As a man, his gaze is attracted directly to them, and he watches them move …show more content…

The girls quickly walk out of the store, leaving Sammy to return his apron and bowtie. As he exits the store, he sees that the girls are already gone, leaving him as alone as he was when he still had his job. Within seconds he realizes the consequences he has to face now. “... my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter” (Updike, 19.) At the beginning of the story, Sammy was a 19-year old with a stable job and no girlfriend. Here, at the end of the story, Sammy is about five minutes older with no job and still no girlfriend. A & P does an exemplary job of telling a short story. In less than five pages, Updike presents an entire story with a conflict, crisis, and climax. His careful attention to detail turns a grocery store trip into a voyage through the aisles of A & P to find love. Sammy may not have found love, but he may have found some self-respect by “standing up” for some girls. The story truly shows how if classic plot elements are assembled correctly, they connect to form compelling

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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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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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In the short story A & P by John Updike, A store clerk

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1. This exposition that includes details about Sammy is vital to the story’s development because this part shows us who Sammy is as a person. The exposition allows us to see what his opinions are in life and what he believes in. We are able to see his personality traits and his social class in relation to others. The author, Updike, illustrates how Sammy is slightly insecure and immature about approaching the girls and instead spends time with his coworkers discussing them. The exposition shows how he is longing for something different in life, to move away from working in the same store just to please his parents.

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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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The story takes place on a hot, summer day at a grocery store called the “A&P”. The protagonist is a nineteen year old male cashier by the name of Sammy. The central conflict occurs when Sammy watches three girls in bathing suits enter into the store to buy some herring snacks. Sammy gleefully watches them and gets attracted to the middle girl, “Queenie”, eventually being infatuated for her.

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3 The story of “A&P” by John Updike adopts the uses of figurative language to embellish the critical moments of transitions of people’s lives, particularly in the life of Sammy. Updike utilizes crafts of plot, character, setting, point of view, theme, and symbol to constitute the story, and to project the idea of "life passages. " Also, Sammy undergoes a series of events that enables him to transition as a person in his life. 3

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John Updike's short story "A&P" is about a 19-year-old boy “Sammy” who is going through changes in his life, and has to make crucial decisions that are going to affect his job and his future in the long run. The story is set in an A&P grocery store, in a town north of Boston, and begins with Sammy’s description of the three girls that enter the store. Sammy decides to quit his job in order to impress the girl “Queenie.” Unfortunately, his gentlemanly act goes unnoticed by Queenie and her friends, and he has no choice but to face the consequences of his action. The author of the story clarifies that Sammy’s immaturity comes from his judgmental attitude, sexist beliefs, and disrespectful attitude.

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“A&P” by John Updike is a short story expressing the issues of female objectification and degradation in society by following a young A&P employee’s views (Sammy) as they change through experiences second hand. Sammy goes from stereotyping objectifier to a form of a public defender, standing up for girls who can’t really do so for themselves. Sammy initially characterizes and describes all of the people in the store based on their looks and his initial opinion of them, rather than waiting to make judgements based on their personality, or not at all. He is very critical of looks, and is judgmental about why and how they look or act the way they do.

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Morally, Jay Gatsby did not wish to pursue the American dream, he found himself looking for an answer that made him the man he was, the self-made wealth and happiness that he created was all a facade for a hazy future that he expected to come true, which never did. The ideal representation of Gatsby is the pursuit of your dream. Inquiring how he felt throughout the story, Gatsby’s dream was unachievable through the crooked ways he tried to win over Daisy. The front Gatsby put forth of achieving the American Dream was legitimate, however, he did not achieve his true happiness in life. The justification of how Jay pursued the American Dream was not behind his perspective as a bootlegger but his perspective as a man who was deeply in love.

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444 Words | 2 Pages

In the short story “A&P” by John Updike, the readers are shown the life of an impressionable teenager named Sammy and given a glimpse of his mental process when three young women in bikinis enter his place of work. These three girls, which he names Queenie, Plaid, and Big Tall Goony-Goony, quickly become the most exciting thing about his dull job at the convenience store A&P. Unable to take his eyes off their partially exposed bodies he watches as they move from aisle to aisle up until they approach the checkout counter. When all of a sudden the conservative manager Lengel confronts the ladies and makes remarks on their inappropriate attire, stating that if they wish to wear bikinis they should be at the beach. As the embarrassed girls leave the store insulted, Sammy stands up to his blunt manager for the rude words he exchanged to the women he’s been obsessed with.

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458 Words | 2 Pages

This is where the dramatic conflicts comes into place because Sammy is upset that Langel has embrassed the young ladies. (Until almost the ending where Sammy confronts Lengel) Sammy does not stay quite and starts to stand up for these girls. Sammy is so displeased with Lengel's actions that he quits. Sammy quits his job because he wants to start living the life that the girls in the bathing suits were living.

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368 Words | 2 Pages

Discuss one of the following regarding John Updike's "A&P": Characterization, Setting, Theme. Sammy is the narrator of this story. He is an opinionated teenager who describes people shopping at the store as “sheep”. He believes everyone acts the same.

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850 Words | 4 Pages

This helps the reader visualize a sarcastic and frustrated cashier ringing up an impatient customer. Sammy refers to the customers as “sheep” in paragraph five because of their conformity and slow mosey throughout the store also making the three girls stick out more. In paragraph 2, Sammy refers to one of the girls as a “queen” using a direct metaphor as if she truly was a Queen. This reinforces Sammy’s observant mind and way he breaks down each girl. Whether his opinion was positive or negative, deducing women by their looks and staring at their chests, “this clean bare plane of the top of her chest down from the shoulder bones like a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light,”(3), does nothing but further supplement the idea that these three girls are being watched just because of their choice in attire.

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895 Words | 4 Pages

Point of View of John Updike’s “A&P” In the short story A&P written by John Updike is written in the 1st person naïve point of view. A&P is considered 1st person naïve because the narrator is too young to be trusted. He also is telling us the story as he feels to be the truth. The main character of this story is Sammy and the author Updike chooses 1st person to Naïve because he wants to show the readers what Sammy is thinking from his point of view aka his emotions and reactions to certain situations.

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