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Morality in literature
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The short story “A & P” by John Updike makes us think about the choices we make. Young people do not have much experience in life which causes them to do things irrationally. Young adults make choices on impulse, without a good reason, or simply to impress someone. Some people make choices without thinking. They act on impulse. For example, the cashier, Sammy, in the story made a hasty decision. He quit his job because he did not like the way his boss dealt with the girls. After he walked out he realized that quitting wasn’t such a good idea. He said, “My stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.”(32) In my own life, I found that you should never make hasty decisions. When I was younger, I didn’t …show more content…
When these norms are broken there must be a good reason. The girls walking into the store wearing bathing suits was not acceptable. The girls did not have a good enough reason for wearing bathing suits to the store. In fact this was unacceptable in their society. In fact Sammy says, “..the women generally put on a shirt or shorts or something before they get out of the cat into the street.”(10) Walking around in a bathing suits in shops by the beach is one thing. When you are five miles away from the beach I feel you should at least have the decency to put on shorts if not more clothes to cover up the upper body. They were not the only ones who did not have good reasons for the choices they made. Stoksie and all the other men did not have good reasons for watching the girls either. On the other hand Sammy was watching them because he was making an effort to understand why the girls would walk in to a store like that. Lengel made a good choice when he reprimanded the girls although his intention was to embarrass them. Although if you think about it in a way Lengel was saving the girls from prying eyes of men even if that wasn’t his …show more content…
He wanted to be seen as a hero in their eyes. I feel there is a place for heroism in everyday life but in this story I don’t feel it was appropriate. The girls did not even see Sammy stand up for them. I feel Sammy quit for no reason. He was just trying to be a hero in front of the girls, but his plan backfired. He ended up alone while the girls didn’t notice a thing. They left before he could even get outside. He says, “I looked around for my girls, but they’re gone, of course.”(32) In my own life, I found that when I show off or try to impress someone it usually always backfires. I tried playing hero for my brother and his friends. I had a huge crush on one of his friends and I was trying to get him to talk to me. They all got in trouble with my mom and I somehow convinced her to let them go. Unfortunately he didn’t care that I helped them out. Instead I was the one who got yelled at by my mom every time. I feel heroism should be done from the kindness of one’s heart not to impress
A&P by John Updike and Araby by James Joyce are about young men who are attracted to women they meet based on the their physical appearance and nothing else. These men, however, are being portrayed unrealistically. In A&P, the protagonist Sammy makes an unintelligent decision based on his misogynistic manager 's behaviour. Araby portrays it 's main character as sacrificing heavily because of the influence of an attractive woman. Both characters are depicted unfairly and unrealistically as simple creatures with untrained and impetuous minds. Updike and Joyce have both fictionalized the actions of these males in unrealistic ways that lead one to believe, unjustly, that teen males have no mental capability outside of lusting after females.
This story represents a coming-of-age for Sammy. Though it takes place over the period of a few minutes, it represents a much larger process of maturation. From the time the girls enter the grocery store, to the moment they leave, you can see changes in Sammy. At first, he sees only the physicality of the girls: how they look and what they are wearing, seem to be his only observations. As the story progresses, he notices the interactions between the girls, and he even determines the hierarchy of the small dynamic. He observes their actions and how they affect the other patrons of the business. Rather, how the other people view the girl's actions. His thought process is maturing and he starts to see things as an adult might see them.
John Updike's A & P. At first read, John Updike's 'A & P' contrasts old and new; the old manager in his settled life conflicting with the new age of girls wearing bathing suits in buildings. All the while, the narrator stuck in the middle, finally deciding to join the side of new, or youth. Instead of old vs. new, an observation closer to the heart of the story is the conflict between the worlds of the rich and the middle class. A & P - What is a & P? is the setting for one man to decide in which way he will seek to follow his life, standing on his own two feet and treating everyone as equals, or bowing before the wealthy, and searching for his own riches above all else.
In many ways they show that they are trying to protect the girls and do something for them. As seen in this quote by Sammy in “A&P”. “The girls, and who’d blame them, are I a hurry to get out, so I say “I Quit” to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they’ll stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero. This quote showing how Sammy wants to be there for the girls, and be their savior. Until the end of each story they also both show or seem to be untouched by rejection until they actually know what it is like.
He quit his job. For one thing, Sammy is now outside the A&P, looking in. Even though he left the store of his own will, it probably feels lonely to be shut out of something he used to be a part of. He's also outside the society the girls are in, a society that might encourage daring acts like wearing a bathing suit in public. As he looked inside and saw that Lengel was in his cash register he said “His face was dark gray and his back stiff, as if he'd just had an injection of iron, and my stomach kind of fell.” There was no turning back for Sammy because they had already replaced
In his short story "A & P" John Updike utilizes a 19-year-old adolescent to show us how a boy gets one step closer to adulthood. Sammy, an A & P checkout clerk, talks to the reader with blunt first person observations setting the tone of the story from the outset. The setting of the story shows us Sammy's position in life and where he really wants to be. Through the characterization of Sammy, Updike employs a simple heroic gesture to teach us that actions have consequences and we are responsible for our own actions.
In John Updike’s short story, A&P, the protagonist investigates the theme of assigning significance to others’ actions. As the three bathing suit-clad girls shop, Sammy reads into their existence in the store as the utmost portrayal of confidence and casual rebellion. However, the girls are there to complete a task asked of them, and don’t intend on causing such the stir that leads Sammy to quit his job. Sammy unknowingly explores the discontinuity between the importance of one’s own actions and another’s.
Sammy’s immature behavior is predominant throughout the short story in multiple occasions. He is judgmental
In the short story “A&P” by John Updike, a young store clerk named Sammy observes three young girls walking into the store, and in great detail describes the appearance of each girl. He obsesses over these girl’s every move throughout the story. Eventually the girls go to cash out only to be halted by the manager who tells them they need to be “decently dressed” when shopping at his store. After Sammy rings the three girls up he tells the manager he quits in order to impress the girls. Unfortunately they don’t notice and when he leaves the store he realizes the girls are gone, and that he has made mistake. The author paints the protagonist as an individual who despises his job, and as a very cynical person who loathes the average customer at
John Updike’s “A&P” is a short story about a nineteen year old boy during the 1960’s that has a summer job at the local A&P grocery. The main character in the story, Sammy, realizes that life isn’t always fair and that sometimes a person makes decisions that he will regret. Sammy sees that life doesn’t always go as planned when three young girls in bathing suits walk in and his manager Lengel gives them a hard time, and he comes to term with that sometimes you make bad decisions.
Going against the norm almost always brings trouble. Much more so when the norms relate to gender in our society. From our formative years straight up to adulthood, society upholds certain distinct expectations of behaviors both male and females. Young men and woman are thus expected to follow and fit into these gender roles that are meant to guide and govern their behavior. The theme of gender and gender roles can be examined in the short story, “A & P”, written by John Updike. Through examination it can be seen that various characters go against the expected gender roles of that time period. Specifically the main character and narrator of Sammy. It is through the analysis of Sammy’s behavior that we discover what happens when you go against
John Updike's short story, "A&P" is fictional in a sense that it has a common pattern that leads the reader through a series of events. These events began when three young ladies in bathing suits walk in A&P, and catch the eye of a young man named, Sammy. He seems to favor the chunkier girl of the three that walk in to the store.
I quit! These words can be attached to so many things in life. At times in life things seem to be different then they really are, for instance the thrill and the excitement of having a summer job or even successfully getting a first job. There are certain moments in a person’s life that will always have an impact on them one could call this a definitive moment or an epiphany. In the short story A&P by John Updike the main character Sammy has an epiphany in that he realizes that a moral line has been crossed in his working environment.
The possible reasons for Sammy quitting his job are numerous: Sammy might have just used the treatment of the girls as an excuse, or maybe Lengel did actually upset him that much. It is possible that Sammy did initially quit to impress the girls and be their hero. Susan Uphaus says, "Sammy’s quitting has been described as the reflex of the still uncommitted, of the youth still capable of the grand gesture because he has
John Updike's A&P provides numerous perspectives for critical interpretation. His descriptive metaphors and underlying sexual tones are just the tip of the iceberg. A gender analysis could be drawn from the initial outline of the story and Sammy's chauvinism towards the female. Further reading opens up a formalist and biographical perspective to the critic. After several readings I began seeing the Marxist perspective on the surreal environment of A&P. The economic and social differences are evident through Sammy's storytelling techniques and even further open up a biographical look at Updike's own view's and opinions. According to an essay posted on the internet Updike was a womanizer in his own era and displayed boyish immaturity into his adulthood. A second analysis of this story roots more from a reader-response/formalist view. Although Sammy centered his dramatization around three young females, more specifically the Queen of the trio, it was a poignant detailed head to toe description of scene. I'll touch on that later.