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John Updike: A&P

Finny&Gene

New Member
I am doing a paper on John Updike and I think I want to base my thesis on how Updike uses women as objects of sex and desire in many of his novels/stories.

If three scantily clad boys walked into the A & P instead of the three young girls, or perhaps three middle aged women just coming from the beach, would Sammy still have reacted the same way?

Is it safe to say Sammy's noble deed was motivated by the fact of his desire for the youthful, sexy Queenie?
 
What is the A&P? Is it like a supermarket or drugstore?(are they still around?)

anyways,
I am doing a paper on John Updike and I think I want to base my thesis on how Updike uses women as objects of sex and desire in many of his novels/stories.

If three scantily clad boys walked into the A & P instead of the three young girls, or perhaps three middle aged women just coming from the beach, would Sammy still have reacted the same way?

Is it safe to say Sammy's noble deed was motivated by the fact of his desire for the youthful, sexy Queenie?

I have not read any of his books,but I would think it is normal behavior and he would react differently with three middleaged women,or three scantily clad boys.

How about you give us a bit more of the story?
 
A & P is a short story by John Updike. The main character, Sammy, is a 19 year old boy who works as a cashier in the A & P in a town outside Boston. The town is an ordinary, non-descript Protestant town and Sammy is often bored with the old, boring usual customers which he refers to as "sheep". One day, in walks three young girls straight from the beach, clad only in their bathing suits. The third girl catches Sammy's eye and he affectionaetly calls her Queenie in his mind as he watches her throughout the store. When she and the girls come into his slot to purchase a case of Fancy Herring Snacks for her mother (suggesting she is of higher class than Sammy), Sammy is delighted and nearly faints when she pulls out her change from the center of her cinched bathing suit top. At this moment, in walks Lengel, the old Sunday school teaching manager who mildly reprimands the girls, telling them this is not the beach and it is the store policy for shoulders to be covered. The girls slightly protest, but they make their purchase and leave. Right after, Sammy declares he quits his jobs. Lengel is puzzeled, but is too weary to argue with Sammy for he has been working all day. Sammy then collects his belongings, and leaves the A & P for good. he looks around for the girls, but they are gone. He leaves saying "I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter."
 
What is the A&P? Is it like a supermarket or drugstore?(are they still around?)

anyways,


I have not read any of his books,but I would think it is normal behavior and he would react differently with three middleaged women,or three scantily clad boys.

How about you give us a bit more of the story?

A&P is a grocery store, Libra.
 
A & P is a short story by John Updike. The main character, Sammy, is a 19 year old boy who works as a cashier in the A & P in a town outside Boston. The town is an ordinary, non-descript Protestant town and Sammy is often bored with the old, boring usual customers which he refers to as "sheep". One day, in walks three young girls straight from the beach, clad only in their bathing suits. The third girl catches Sammy's eye and he affectionaetly calls her Queenie in his mind as he watches her throughout the store. When she and the girls come into his slot to purchase a case of Fancy Herring Snacks for her mother (suggesting she is of higher class than Sammy), Sammy is delighted and nearly faints when she pulls out her change from the center of her cinched bathing suit top. At this moment, in walks Lengel, the old Sunday school teaching manager who mildly reprimands the girls, telling them this is not the beach and it is the store policy for shoulders to be covered. The girls slightly protest, but they make their purchase and leave. Right after, Sammy declares he quits his jobs. Lengel is puzzeled, but is too weary to argue with Sammy for he has been working all day. Sammy then collects his belongings, and leaves the A & P for good. he looks around for the girls, but they are gone. He leaves saying "I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter."

I will go make a thread in the short story section and talk about it,sound good?
 
It'd been awhile since I read that story, so I refreshed my memory with the link provided in the other thread. After having done so, I'm not so sure that it was directly Queenie and Pals that motivated Sammy to leave his job. Also, there are other things to consider.

Throughout the story Sammy is constantly talking about people as if they are "sheep" and making other comments along the same lines. Reading between the lines about his feelings for Lengel, as well as the job itself, it seems as though Queenie and Pals are only the catalyst, not the true motivation, for Sammy's resignation.

You asked about John Updike using females as sex objects in his stories, and again, there's a slight sticky point here, one the requires you delve into the personal motivation of the character. If Sammy is sexist, he'll see the girls as objects, but that doesn't necessarily speak to Updike himself. Separation between author and content is really key - if an author writes a story about a serial killer, does that make him see all people as objects, simply because his character does? No, certainly not.

So, if Sammy is the sexist, not necessarily Updike, we'd assume that he would not quit his job simply over three young girls - they wouldn't matter enough to him. There must be a further motivation. We can also assume, considering the final line, which has nothing to do with the girls at all, that the internal struggle of Sammy is more economically motivated. Several times he mentions the economic class of the girls, as well as considers his own and Lengel's. We also know it summer, and Sammy seems young enough to be a student since his mother ironed his shirt. Perhaps this is a young man still in highschool who will soon return to class? Or a college kid, home to work for the summer? We can't say, but these details bespeak more of a youthful, economic motivation for Sammy, with the girls only providing the catalyst.

If you're simply writing about Updike's continued use of women throughout his stories as catalysts, perhaps it would behoove you to delve a little deeper into why he might choose them. You're probably correct that Sammy would not have seen three young men as a viable catalyst, but that speaks to Sammy's character, not Updike's. What more likely speaks to Updike's character is his choice to write a story with a character like Sammy, a character who would be motivated by three girls. Once Sammy is created, the only logical choice for Updike, in order to provide the proper catalyst for Sammy, is to write in three girls. If Updike had included Sammy, but then written in three boys, Sammy wouldn't have reacted, and Updike would have no story.

So the real thing to consider, if you want to approach it from a gender issues angle, is why include Sammy? Why not a female cashier?
 
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