A&P: Semiotic Setting Plot Initiator

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In John Updikes’ short story titled A&P featured in the textbook Making Literature Matter: An Anthology For Readers, the setting is a grocery store. A grocery store is a complex where people come to shop for goods. This grocery store in particular seems to have a level of conformity that the protagonist, a cashier named Sammy sees in every shopper as well as the environment that serves as a backdrop for the store. From the bank and the church and the bums that litter the street outside, to the varicose veins and unsightly “house slaves” that penetrate the aisle ways. (Updike 616-17) The people in this story all fit into what Sammy, our narrator and protagonist, calls sheep. He compares them to the livestock that live their lives in conformity and subservience. I found these people to be like evil characters that add to Sammy’s decision to quit at the end of the story. Sammy refers to one old lady as a register watcher saying “…if she’d been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem.”(Updike 615) The three attractive and scandalously clad females that enter the store seem to upset the conformity of the grocery store, shoppers and employees alike. The male clerks are eyeing up the girls and the consumers are in shock and awe at the audacity of the young girls. They even have to take a second look to make sure what they see is real. Sammy seems to be doing some shopping of his own as he almost drools over the girls as they advance through the store like royalty. Any conformity that Sammy may have been falling into from being an employee is slowly drained as the girls walk up and down the aisles against the seeming natural flow of the decent, non-aesthetically pleasing customers, while paying no attention to sta... ... middle of paper ... ...d when he exits the store. There is no turning back now, what’s done is done. Upon further research I found an interview with John Updike, the author, where he states there is more to the story. However the editor, Bill Maxwell, removed the couple of pages where he actually goes to the beach to try and find the girls but with no luck. The author said that he actually prefers this shortened version as the outcome still reflects the irony ending with just how hard Sammy believes his life will be. (John Updike) Works Cited "John Updike: "A&P"" Films On Demand. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 May 2014. . Updike, John, John Schilb, John Clifford, and Joyce Hollingsworth. "11 Love.A&P."Resources for teaching Making literature matter: an anthology for readers and writers. Fifth Edition ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 614-19. Print.

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