Comparison Of A & P And Here Come The Maples By John Updike

John Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic. He was born on March 18, 1932 in Reading, Pennsylvania. Some of his most acknowledged pieces are his famous Rabbit, Run series, the first of which was published in 1960. During the semester, we read one of his short stories, “My Father’s Tears” which followed Jim Werley, as he shares the impacts his fathers have made on his life. Furthermore, I decided to go on and read two more of his short stories, “A&P” and “Here Come the Maples”. Updike’s writing style is unlike that of many other writers. Although the three stories are all very different, they share similarities through Updike’s unique style of writing that is shown in each of his short stories.
In his short story “A&P” Sammy, the narrator is checking groceries when he sees three barefoot girls in bathing suits walk into the grocery store. Sammy is immediately fixed on the leader of the three girls, which he describes as “the queen”. He refers to this girl as queenie. As queenie leads the other two girls around the store, Sammy is enjoying watching the shock of the other customers, because they are not used to seeing girls walking around in bathing suits at the A&P. As Sammy is ringing queenie up, the manager of the grocery store comes in and tells the girls off for wearing nothing but skimpy swimsuits. The manager then proceeds to tell Sammy to ring the girls up. Sammy does as he is told but immediately after, tells the manager that he is quitting. The manager, Lengel, warns Sammy that quitting will ruin his life, but Sammy still turns in his apron and bow tie and goes out into the parking lot. The girls are long gone by the time he gets out there. Sammy watches Lengal checking ...

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...ries. Furthermore, his writing technique is very effective in engaging readers and helping the readers to be able to connect better with the narrator of each story. Even though I have not read every single one of his writings, from these three stories I can tell that Updike includes very strong emotions for the reader to better understand and feel the emotions that the characters in his stories may be going through. His methods of writing are definitely unlike that of many other authors that I have encountered. These three stories are very different than any other story I have read in the past. Nevertheless, from reading his stories, I did realize that even though the stories are very short, he is quickly able to engage the readers right away rather than many other stories that may have a slow beginning which usually makes me not want to continue reading a story.