Affirmation of Adulthood in John Updikes A&P Essay -- A&P Essays

Affirmation of Adulthood in Updikes A&P Researching keister Updikes story, A&P, I found many readers concord that the main character Sammy is viewed as a hero or sufferer for forgoting his job at an A&P store in a northern beach town. I did, however, find that critics disagreed on why Sammy quit. ab initio it appears that Sammy quits his job to impress girls who were reprimanded for wearing bathing suits in the A&P. Sammy did not ultimately quit his job to be the hero for trio girls who happened to walk into this A&P. This is not just a story about a nineteen-year-old guy trying to impress a group of girls by quitting his job, but it is also a story describing in detail the twenty-four hour period this nineteen-year-old realizes that sometimes, in the transition from boyhood to adulthood, one must take a crap a give birth and ultimately follow through with this affirmation of adulthood. From the beginning of the story Updike uses Sammys youth and unromantic descriptive po wers to show his immaturity and apparent schoolboyish nature (Uphaus 373). We see this in the opening line of the story In walks tether girls in nothing but bathing suits (Updike 1026). Even the verbalize of Sammy is very familiar and colloquial (Uphaus 373). Much of the information that Sammy relays about the trinity girls is sexually descriptive in a nineteen-year-old boys flair and a sweet broad looking can rear with those two crescents of discolor under it, where the sun never seems to hit (Updike 1026). It is apparent that Sammy looks at the three girls who happen to walk into the A&P only as objects of disposition or possibly boyish desire. Thus, on the surface it is easy to take this story as that of a boy who would do something like quit his job to impress these girls. It is even ... ...omach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter (Updike 1030). This was the sidereal day that Sammy grew up. whole kit and boodle Cited Greiner, Dona ld J. Short Story Criticism. Vol. 13 Detroit Gale Research Inc., 1991. 398-399. Updike, John. A&P. The harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York HarperCollins, 1991.1026-1030. Uphaus, Suzanne Henning. Short Story Criticism. Vol. 13 Detroit Gale Research Inc., 1991. 372-373. Works Consulted Coffman, Kelly. A Turning Point. Ode To Friendship & Other Essays. Ed. Connie Bellamy. Virginia bank, 1997. 190-191. Hatcher, Nathan. Sammys Motive. Ode To Friendship . Ed. Connie Bellamy. Virginia Beach 1997. 188-189. Luscher, Robert M. John Updike A Study of the Short Fiction. New York Twayne, 1993. Uphaus, Suzanne. John Updike. N Y Frederick Ungar, 1986.