Literature approaches to fiction, poetry, and drama

¶ … Updike's a&P

John Updike's short story a&P is very engaging. The story is told from the perspective of a nineteen-year-old clerk at the a&P, a supermarket more commonly known in the bygone era of the 1950s and 60s. At an otherwise typical summer day at his job, Sammy witnesses three adolescent girls walk into the store wearing only their bathing suits, showing a remarkable amount of flesh especially given the time in which the story was written and set. Considering that the book was published in 1961, its themes and even its plot might be expected to be dated and no longer relevant to today, but on the contrary I found striking similarities in many of the attitudes and feelings of the characters of the story, especially the narrator Sammy, with my own feelings and other attitudes today. The continued enjoyment of this story by many readers is a prime indicator of Updike's skill with the short story.

One of the most obvious connections that people of any time would find in this story is the sexuality of Sammy, the other clerk Stokesie, and the three girls -- especially Queenie. Nineteen-year-olds, especially nineteen-year-old men (or overgrown boys, which might be a more apt description) are known in life and literature for the intensity and frequency of their sexual desires. Sammy's attention stays with the girls for almost the entire story; he is so distracted by the sight of the girls at the beginning of the story that he makes a mistake at the register, and his eyes follow them as they make their way through the store. His excitement over the amount of flesh he sees and his enjoyment of the girls' proportions is obvious not only from the constant physical description he gives of the three girls, but also from the tone of his voice an the way he keeps interrupting himself, as though the sight is too much to take in: "There was this chunky one, with the two-piece -- it was bright green and the seams on the bra were still sharp and her belly was still pretty pale so I guessed she just got it." was surprised at the frankness of the sexuality in this story, but it is definitely something I can relate to. There are several moments I can recall from my adolescence where I was struck with intense physical attraction, and like Sammy I found these events intensely distracting. The other clerk, Stokesie, is equally distracted, despite his wife and two kids at home. This detail of Updike's makes the sexuality extend past mere adolescence; though Stokesie is only twenty-two years old, he has the responsibilities of a full adult (unlike most twenty-two-year-olds today), but he is tsill drawn to the flesh of these adolescent girls. In a&P, sexuality permeates every event in the story, as if Updike is asserting that such desires are an inevitable human force that we cannot help but acknowledge. This interpretation is given further credence by the old butcher's "sizing up their joints."

This has been a contentious point in literature, politics, and the social sciences pretty much since the beginning of recorded history (and probably long before that). Sammy's boss Mr. Lengel does not appreciate the girls' dress, and repeats several times that the a&P is not a beach, eventually demanding that the girls cover up better before coming into the store the next time. Because of the frankness of the description of the girls and the obvious sexual desire expressed by Sammy and the other men, I was not too surprised that the girls' bathing suits earned negative commentary by the end of the story. The girls' reaction, though, did make me realize how much society has changed since the time the story was written. Now, not only do people (especially girls and women) wear much more revealing clothes, but a comment such as Lengel's would probably have met with an argument rather than embarrassment.