SOURCE: "Updike and the Critics: Reflections on 'A & P'," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 20, Nos. 2-3, Spring-Summer, 1983, pp. 95-100.

In the following essay, McFarland surveys critical interpretations of "A & P" and considers why the piece "has emerged as Updike's best known story. "

During the twenty years since its appearance in Pigeon Feathers (1962), "A & P" has been established as John Updike's most widely read short story. Its popularity among anthologists, as recourse to the listings in Studies in Short Fiction demonstrates, has made the story standard reading for thousands of college and high school students. It has appeared in over twenty anthologies since its inclusion in Douglas and Sylvia Angus's Contemporary American Short Stories in 1967. What accounts for the continuing popularity of this particular story?

The reviewers greeted Pigeon Feathers with that peculiar damnation-by-hyperbolic-praise which continues to plague Updike. Arthur Mizener began his page-one review in New York...