FREE ESSAY ON JOHN UPDIKE'S A & P

JOHN UPDIKE'S A & P

The Characters of John Updike's A & P
In A & P, John Updike develops his characters through the eyes of the main character,
Sammy. Sammy works in a grocery store, and one day he observes three young girls as they
come into the store. The whole time they are in the A & P, Sammy describes their
appearance, behavior, and his impression of them in great detail.
Sammy watches each of the girls as they look around the store, but there is one that
catches his attention right as they walk in. He is so busy staring at her that he makes
the customer he is ringing up very mad at him. Sammy describes the young girl as a chunky
kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft - looking can with those two crescents of
white just under it...(Updike, 105). He notices everything about the girl, even down to
the fact that she does not have a tan line, so she must have just bought the bright
green, two piece, bathing suit. He also notices that she is very conscience of being a
little over weight, because she ..fumbled with the cookies, but on second thought she put
the packages back(Updike, 106).
Sammy describes the next girl as a pretty girl, but not pretty enough to be called
beautiful. He puts great detail in describing her appearance, and describes everything
about her, from her long, frizzy hair, to her long neck, and the sunburns underneath her
eyes. This girl is the tallest of the three, but he says that while she is  the kind of
girl other girls think is very 'striking' and 'attractive' but never quite makes it....is
why they like her so much (Updike, 105).
The last girl he describes is the one he thinks is the leader of the three girls, and
even calls her the queen (Updike, 105). Sammy describes her as being a very self-assured
girl, who is trying to teach the other girls how to be just like her. He states that she
had talked the other two into coming in here with her, and now she was showing them how
to do it, walk slow and hold yourself straight (Updike, 106). Sammy goes into the
greatest detail describing the character. He talks about the color of her bathing suit,
how her straps are pulled down, the style of her hair, and the manner in which she walks
across the store. He is very impressed by her, and shows this by saying, ...this clean
bare plane of the top of her chest down from the shoulder bones like a dented sheet of
metal tilted in the light. I mean, it was more than pretty (Updike, 106). Sammy also
shows how impressed he is with her by saying, The longer her neck was, the more of her
there was (Updike, 106).
Mr. Updike does a great job of developing his characters through the eyes of Sammy. He
puts descriptions of the girls' appearance, behavior, and impressions of them, given to
the reader through Sammy's thoughts. By Sammy describing the girls in such great detail,
it lets the reader get to know him as a character just as well as seeing the ones he is
describing. 
Bibliography
Kirszner, Laurie G., and Stephen R. Mandell. Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing.
Florida:
Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1997.