Literary Elements in A And P Essay

A and P Timed Writing

In the short story, A &P John Updike uses metaphors, visual imagery, and colloquial, euphonious, and cacophonous diction to convey Sammys bored and dissatisfied attitude towards the majority of A & P customers. Using these same devices, Updike illustrates Sammys enthralled and excited attitude towards the three girls in nothing but bathing suits. Sammys contrasting attitudes towards the different customers help to develop the theme of the importance of nonconformity in the story.

Throughout the story, Updike uses colloquial diction not only to establish Sammys voice, but also to establish his conflicting attitudes towards customers. In the first paragraph, Sammy describes one of the three young girls and a middle aged woman. He describes the young girl as having a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can and the woman as a witchwith rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows. He then says that she was giving [him] hell and that it made her day to trip [him] up. Updike also uses euphonious words to describe the three young girls and cacophonous words to describe the other customers. In describing the girls, he uses pleasant sounding words such as sweet, soft, oaky, unraveling, shining, slipped, loose, smoothest, blush, prima donna, and pretty. On the other hand, he uses harsh sounding words such as witch, snort, jerk, snapped, stumbles, haggling, and scuttle when talking about the other customers.

Updike also uses a variety of metaphors to depict Sammys attitude towards both the young girls and the other customers. For example, the A & P customers are compared to sheep various times throughout the story. After Lengel makes a scene about the young girls attire, Sammy says that the customers had been showing up with their carts but, you know, sheep, seeing a scene, they had all bunched up on Stokesie In the closing paragraph the customers are again referred to as sheep. In addition, Sammy metaphorically compares the womens legs in his town to maps. He exclaims that the women have varicose veins mapping their legs. This metaphor creates an extremely unattractive picture of these women. On the other hand, the young girls are metaphorically compared to more unique and beautiful things, such as dented sheets of metal and smooth scoops of vanilla ice cream.

Updike also uses visual imagery to contrast the three girls with the rest of the customers. In particular, he makes countless references to color. He describes one of the girls bathing suits as bright green and the Queens bathing suit as dirty-pink. He also emphasizes the girls tans and sunburns, and the Queens white skin. He goes into detail about her white prima donna legs and her bare white shoulders. On the other hand, gray is the only color used to describe the other customers and Sammys boss, Lengel. Sammy describes Lengel as being old and gray and later his face is also referred to as being gray.

Sammys dissatisfied attitude towards the customers and enthralled attitude towards the young girls can be used to develop a major theme in the story: the importance of nonconformity. While the majority of the customers follow the crowd like lost sheep, the girls [walk] against the usual traffic. The girls are nonconformists, while the rest of the customers just try to fit into the mundane society where they live. Updike shows this first by strategically placing the girls in a grocery store in bathing suits and no shoes. He then gives the girls color (literally), while he leaves the rest of the customers boring and gray. Finally, he uses an extended metaphor in comparing the customers to sheep; animals that follow the pack without question. Therefore, when Sammy quits his job one can assume that he is making an act against nonconformity.

Metaphors, imagery, and diction are all used to create a bored attitude towards the customers and a fascinated attitude towards the three young girls. At first glance one may see Sammys quitting as an act of rebellion; however, upon closer inspection, it is clear that Sammy is making an act against conformity.