John Updike's celebrated and often-anthologized story "A & P" was first published in the July 22, 1961 issue of The New Yorker. The story focuses on Sammy, a 19-year-old man who works at a small supermarket. The narrative unfolds in real time as Sammy speaks to the reader using both the first and second person points of view. When three young women dressed in swimsuits enter the store and the conflict at the center of the story unfolds, Sammy recognizes an opportunity to interrupt his own slow descent into adulthood, responsibility, and a mundane life. The story includes themes such as the nature of courage, the importance of independent thinking, and the impact of class differences.
During his college years John Updike was a graphic artist, especially adept as a cartoonist and draftsman, and this very literal sense of style has been the most distinguishing factor in his novels an...
Read more
John Updike was born in Shillington, Pennsylvania. Following graduation (summa cum laude) in 1954 from Harvard University, where he was an English major and editor of the Harvard Lampoon, he studied f...
Read more
[This entry was updated by Donald J. Greiner (University of South Carolina) from his entry in DLB 143: American Novelists Since World War II, Third Series, pp. 250-276.]A reader would be hard pressed ...
Read more
While his stature as a short-story writer may be perpetually overshadowed by the novelistic achievements of the Rabbit tetralogy--Rabbit, Run (1960), Rabbit Redux (1971), Rabbit Is Rich (1981), and Ra...
Read more
A reader would be hard pressed to name a contemporary author other than John Updike whose work is more in tune with the way most Americans live. Unconcerned with apocalypse in his fiction, undeterred ...
Read more
Author John Updike (born 1932) mirrored his America in poems, short stories, essays, and novels, especially the four-volume "Rabbit" series.John Updike was born on March 18, 1932, in Shillington, Penn...
Read more
"A reader would be hard pressed to name a contemporary author other than John Updike whose work is more in tune with the way most Americans live," wrote Donald J. Greiner in Dictionary of Literary Bio...
Read more
Biography EssayA reader would be hard pressed to name a contemporary author other than John Updike who is more in tune with the way most Americans live. Unconcerned with apocalypse in his fiction, und...
Read more
It is very common for teenagers to wish to gain some freedom by earning a small income. This is often achieved through employment at fast-food chains, markets, restaurants, and shops. As a...
Read more
A work of literature can mean many things to each new reader who journeys into it. Details derived from the text can incite diverse reactions from readers based on their own understanding, age, gend...
Read more
Walking out of the A & P, Sammy knew he had made a mistake. Three young ladies, clad only in skimpy bathing suits, had entered the store shortly before. As they cruised up and down the isles he admi...
Read more
John Updikes short story "A&P" is a story about a young boy, Sammy. Sammy works in a grocery story where he seems bored out of his mind. One day he sees three girls in bathing suits walk i...
Read more
Three girls, clad in just bathing suits, walk into the local grocery store and are yelled at by the manager for not wearing proper clothing. A cashier who thinks that his manager is not being fair abo...
Read more
At first glance, John Updike's short story A & P seems to be another coming of age piece. But with taking a deeper look, in many ways you see how the A & P grocery store could be viewed as microcos...
Read more
Analysis of A & P's Resolution
In the short story A & P, the narrator, Sammy, leaves the reader with his final thought of .". I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter." Depending on...
Read more
John Updike's "A&P" is about a boy named Sammy, who lives a simple life while working in a supermarket he seems to despise. As he is following his daily routine, three girls in bathing suits enter the...
Read more