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John updike’s a & p literary elements
Literary analysis essay of A & P by John Updike
Literary analysis essay of A & P by John Updike
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John Updike is an amazing writer during his time. He wrote many short stories and poems. He is an American and is a literacy critic. He was widely praised as America's "last true man of letters", with a huge and far-reaching power on many writers. It is said that “John Updike has been called the most gifted writer of his generation; ‘Updike writes with the tongue of angels, and sees with the eye of a bird’” (Hamilton). Updike was well-recognized for his careful craftsmanship, and his unique prose style. He wrote on average a book a year. Despite in his books about characters, themes, and attitudes, John Updike based his writings on his life experiences because he wanted to put a personal feeling in his books. John Updike was born on March 18, 1932 in Reading, Pennsylvania. He was raised in a small town of Shillington. He grew up being the only child. He lived with his father Wesley, his mother Linda and his grandparents. His father was a junior-high math teacher and his mother was a housewife and aspiring writer. He had psoriasis and was inspired by his mother to write. They moved from Shillington to his mother’s birthplace in Plowville, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Shillington high school as the president and co-valedictorian of the senior class. He worked as a copy boy for Reading Eagle for a couple of summers. He received a tuition scholarship from Harvard University. He begins to write and draw cartoons for Harvard Lampoon. He meets and marries his first wife Mary E. Pennington, who was a fine art major at Radcliffe. He was elected the editor of Harvard Lampoon. As a senior, he wrote a thesis on Robert Herrick, the seventeenth-century English poet. He graduated with an English literature major from Harvard. He sold his... ... middle of paper ... ...here are other things he put in his stories like religion, middle-class experiences, sexuality, and death. He could never take a break from his work because he would get nervous and feels unhappy if he didn’t write something after a little while. He lived a great life and he had fans that love his work. John Updike was the most considerable stylist among the writers of fiction in his American generation. He is in one of a group of contemporary novelists who get criticism by their conventional religious desires. Works Cited Schiff, James A. John Updike Revisited. New York: Twayne, 1998. Print. Luscher, Robert M. John Updike: a Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1993. Print. Hamilton, Alice, and Kenneth Hamilton. The Elements of John Updike. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1970. Print. Bloom, Harold. John Updike. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. Print.
Wells, Walter. "John Updike's 'A & P'" Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 30, (1993) : Spring, pp. 127(7).
William Peden once called John Updike’s “A&P” “deftly narrated nonsense...which contains nothing more significant than a checking clerk's interest in three girls in bathing suits” (Peden). While Peden’s criticism may be harsher than necessary, it is hard to find fault with his analysis. Sammy’s tale offers little more than insight into an egocentric and self-motivated mind, and while Updike may disagree with that conclusion, a close reading of the text offers significant evidence to support this theory. In “An Interview with John Updike”, Updike describes how Sammy quit as a “feminist protest” (153). However, I would argue that Sammy’s act of defiance was selfishly motivated and represents his inner struggle with his social class as demonstrated through his contempt for those around him and his self-motivated actions.
Interpretation of A & P This story takes place in 1961, in a small New England town's A&P grocery store. Sammy, the narrator, is introduced as a grocery checker and an observer of the store's patrons. He finds himself fascinated by a particular group of girls. Just in from the beach and still in their bathing suits, they are a stark contrast, to the otherwise plain store interior.
Although the short stories, “A&P,” by John Updike, and “How to Tell a True War Story,” by Timothy O’Brien, are both written in the technique of first person narrative, the two stories are conveyed to the reader in very different styles.
John Steinbeck was perhaps the best author of all time. He was the winner of a Nobel Prize, and among other accomplishments, Steinbeck published nineteen novels and made many movies during his lifetime. All of his experience and knowledge are shown through his novels. A reader can tell, just in reading a novel by Steinbeck, that he had been through a lot throughout his life. Also, Steinbeck worked very hard to accomplish everything that he did during his lifetime. Nothing came very easily to him, and he had to earn everything he owned. This helped him in his writing, because he was able to write about real people and real experiences. John Steinbeck got his inspiration from life experiences, people he knew, and places he had gone.
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 “Marching through a Novel,” John Updike, conveys a complex relationship between the novelist and characters, by representing the author as a god-like figure whose characters are like his soldiers ready to take action upon his command. John Updike successfully portrays this characterization through his use of metaphors, diction, and imagery.
Two Works Cited John Updike’s story, "A&P," starts off: "In walks three girls in nothing but bathing suits," and that pretty much sums it all up (Updike 1026). In the story, not only are the girls in bathing suits looked upon as sex objects, but other women are negatively viewed as witches, farm animals, or slaves. This story is about how a young man in the early 1960’s viewed women as a whole, including his own mother.
Some of the most aspiring and influential authors show to be American novelists. American novelists brought about a new style of writing, which became very popular. John Steinbeck shows this style of writing in his novel, East of Eden. This makes Steinbeck one of the most significant American novelists in the twentieth century. East of Eden contains many parts, which add detail and interest to the novel. Many of Steinbeck’s novels and other works remain and continue to be nationally acclaimed. Many elements exist in East of Eden that bring about the meaning and concept of the novel. The study of John Steinbeck and his book, East of Eden, will help the reader better understand the element of fiction and interpret the meaning of the work.
Wells, Walter. "John Updike's 'A & P': A Return Visit to Araby." Studies in Short Fiction 30.2 (Spring 1993): 127-133. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Anna J. Sheets. Vol. 27. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998. Literature Resource Center. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.
Updike, John “A&P.” Exploring Literature: Writing and Arguing About Fiction, Poetry, Drama and The Essay.4th e. Ed. Frank Madden. New York: Pearson Longman, 2009. 496-501. Print.
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.
People often take their place in society for granted. They accept that position into which they are born, grow up in it, and pass that position on to their children. This cycle continues until someone is born who has enough vision to step out of his circle and investigate other ways of life in which he might thrive. One such person is embodied in the character of Sammy in A&P, by John Updike. Sammy is the narrator of the story and describes an incident in the store where he encounters a conflict between the members of two completely different worlds the world that he was born into and the world of a girl that captures his mind. Through his thoughts, attitudes, and actions, Sammy shows that he is caught between the two worlds of his customers at the A&P.
In the stories written by John Updike and Jamaica Kincaid, both are completely different in terms of plot and the manner in which each were written, however through the elements of character and theme, the two can be closely associated to one another. By looking further into stories one will find that there is usually more than what meets the eye as illustrated in “Girl” and “A&P.”
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.