Thesis For A & P By John Updike

In John Updike’s short story “A&P”, the idea of feminism and gender segregation is prevalent in their patriarchal society. Our narrator, Sammy, is clearly a young man who objectifies three girls that walk into his store wearing swimsuits - as exemplified by his derogatory thoughts. However, at the end of the story, he performs a sort of objectification towards feminism by quitting his job in response to his boss’s reaction to the girls. From the moment the girls walk in, Sammy refers to their appearance based on their bodies. He describes one of the girls as having “a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it where the sun never seems to hit” (Paragraph 1) and comparing another’s breasts to “ the two smoothest scoops of vanilla [he] had ever known were there” (Paragraph 21). Interestingly enough, most of the comments Sammy makes about the girls correlate to food. It is no surprise that Updike chooses a “meat counter” (Paragraph 5) as their destination. In this society, women are seen as a piece of meat and just something “shiny” and “pretty” to look at like “a dented sheet

It is clear by the “kind of jerk, or hop, or hiccup” their bodies perform at the sight of Queenie and their quick aversion when “their eyes [snap] back to their own baskets” that they do not approve of the girls. Along with this, Sammy describes some of the viewers as “house-slaves in pin curlers” (Paragraph 5). By referring to the women as “house-slaves,” he is revealing the true role of women in this society - to be the typical stay at home mom who cooks, cleans, and takes care of the children. For further proof, he describes the typical woman customer as one “with six children and varicose veins mapping their legs” and says that they “generally put on a shirt or shorts or something before they get out of the car into the street” (Paragraph