A & P By John Updike Analysis

In the story “A & P” by John Updike the style of the writing is unlike most writing you may come across, it is a bit harder to follow sometimes but still fully understandable. The Story is about a young man who works in a grocery store as a cashier and the events that lead him to quit his job. There is also much more to it than that though, it illustrates that different people choose certain paths because of how they grew up or are growing up. The narrater of the story is a judgmental sounding nineteen year old who has something to say about anyone who walks into the store, but this particular day, when the girls walked in made him change is attitude a bit. At the beginning of the story the Narrator is just going about his daily routine when three girls supposedly around his age walk in, wearing nothing but bathing suits. The points of the story try to show how people of different ages and genders react to something like this, especially in days where it was considered more inappropriate than it is in today’s society. …show more content…
The narrator points out the attributes he likes but he does so in a way that would seem offensive, if he said them aloud. He does not only criticize his peers but the older woman in his checkout line, thinking “they would have burned her over in Salem” (Updike 148). All the while the narrator is thinking these judgmental things his coworker also has his ideas and exclaims things such as “oh daddy, I feel so faint” (Updike 150) and he is a married man. The story shows that everyone judges and in different ways no matter the age, gender, if they are single or