myles' blog

John updike's A&P

Short story

A&P
By John Updike

1. My short story A&P is mainly about a cashier named Sammy at a grocery store real close to the beach. On this day he noticed three good looking young ladies come into his store with nothing but their bathing suits on. And it seemed as if everybody in the store noticed and it was obviously all that Sammy noticed. In the story it is all from Sammy’s point of view. So it goes through with him watching the girls and what they pick up and we just kind of get opinions about the girls from the things they look at in the store, how they carry themselves, and just the way they walk. But eventually they get to Sammy’s register to check out when the manger walks in and approaches the girls and says to them, "girl’s this isn’t the beach" and at first this kind of embarrasses them but then you can tell he starts to offend them when they start arguing, but as they are walking at Sammy has a split decision to quit because of the way his manager embarrassed those girls it obviously angered him. He walks out the store and said, " I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter."
For the most part I thought it was a well-written story. You really get to know Sammy and the way he thinks because the writer express’ himself so well. I like how at the ending his comment about how hard it would be hereafter. What I got from that is well when he quit it was a pretty big deal for him and he wanted the girls to see him do it but after it was done and over when he walked out the store it mattered to know but himself. As for myself I don’t know if I would have reacted so harshly. It wouldn’t have bothered me that much. But I guess that’s why Sammy’s the main character and not Myles.
Sammy was a 19-year-old who I think is still trying to figure out which he really is. I think is a good pretty innocent kid you can tell just from the way he didn’t know why the kids where always buying so much pineapple juice in the story it hints at making screwdrivers most 19 year olds would know stuff like that buy now and you can tell just by the way he admired the girls that his mind wasn’t corrupt or dirty or anything crazy like that.
The manager of the store I think was your average stereotypical manager, you don’t really how any power but thinks Hess the king of the world or something just looking for anything to be wrong.
The 3 girls in the story are pretty typical as well I think. There is one that I kind of think as the leader who they refer to as queenie. "That’s the one I would go for", but he likes the other kind of chunky one the best you can tell she kind of knows she a little fat to because she messes with the cookies then puts them back and goes over to the diet snacks and the third girl they don’t really go into shes just kind of there tagging along it refers to her as the kind of girl that his real pretty but will never be the prettiest.

Simile- A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as, as in "How like the winter hath my absence been" or "So are you to my thoughts as food to life" (Shakespeare). Example do you think theres really a mind in there are a buzz like a bee in a glass jar.
Metaphor- A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison, as in "a sea of troubles" or "All the world's a stage" (Shakespeare). Example by the time I got her feathers smoothed.
Personification- Giving something other than a person human qualities.
Allusion-The act of alluding; indirect reference: Without naming names, the candidate criticized the national leaders by allusion.

Hyperbole-A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect, Example could sleep for a year or this book weighs a ton.
Irony-The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.
An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning.
A literary style employing such contrasts for humorous or rhetorical effect.

posted by myles @ 7:36 AM