And there it is in all its glory: the greatest short story ever published, restored, taught in classrooms and banned for being too lewd.
“A&P” by John Updike was first published in The New Yorker in 1961, then in a collection called “Pigeon Feathers” in 1962. Though I have read numerous short stories, this is the only short that made me question why it was written.
Usually when I read short stories or talk about them, I have a good idea of the purpose: why it was in writing, the kind of environment published into, et cetera, et cetera. But for the life of me, with all of the background information I have read up on, I can’t really place why “A&P” was written. Don’t get me wrong, it is my favorite short story, but I want to know the purpose.
The story begins with a rather intimidating and out-of-pocket first sentence: “In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits.” Right off the bat, this story seemingly gives off the wrong impression, but it is a sentence that emphasizes the importance of what comes next.
Between the 1940s-1960s, A&P was a mass-marketed, popularized grocery store similar to Kroger or Publix for us Tennesseans. The story begins with Sam, or Sammy, working the checkout lane of A&P and spotting girls walking in. As Updike tends to do in his writing, he emanates from realism and floats closely into delirium with his fiction. Sammy, acting as the teenage boy that he is, is practically hypnotized by the girls.
Updike was a very contemporary, out-of-the-box writer when he first struck rich in 1957, with his first poetic collection hitting the shelves. The five years leading up to the publication of “Pigeon Feathers” was a prolific time for him. He published two novels, his first short story collection and became a regular contributor to The New Yorker.
“Pigeon Feathers” inspired people to call Updike the most talented writer of his age in America. “A&P” is just one of 18 lovely, intriguing and intuitive stories, all from the brilliant mind of Updike himself.
Sammy is widely similar to Updike in his youth — he speaks his mind, elaborates how he thinks and feels, and wonders far off-topic in a regular situation. And with the 1960s came a time when some modern-day things were very much not appreciated, especially in public.
This story really illuminates the rebellious, rambunctious revolution that the 60s seemed to cause. Perhaps the most impactful decade in the latter half of the 20th century, the 1960s, especially with the literature published and destroyed, and the protective membrane surrounding the small, feeble minds of adults back then.
Continuing on with “A&P,” the girls eventually find what they are looking for in the store and head to the checkout line, to which Sammy is harshly intimidated by their radiant courage and overwhelming pride. The A&P store manager, Lengel, harshly pesters the girls for looking indecent. Sammy gets defensive, trying to protect the girls as if they couldn’t protect themselves, and he gets pestered for it.
The girls tried to reason: it was the summer, and they were only going to be in the store for a few minutes. Eventually, the girls get forced out of the store, and Sammy angrily throws his apron down and quits on the spot as if it created some sort of hoity-toity revolution.
The story speaks to me primarily because the 1960s were filled with both radical change and the idea of protesting rights. But in some cases like Sammy’s, the protest can lead to a downward spiral. In this case, he cost himself his job by trying to stand up for the girls, even though they were perfectly well off without him.
He did it to himself in a nutshell, but the magnitude of protesting still hangs high in this short piece of fiction. Updike was a writer who dared charge the throats of the higher-ups of the publishing community and never took no for an answer. He wrote what he wanted when he wanted for as long as he wanted.
Sammy, unfortunately, represents all of the highly misogynistic men of the era, and he is too blind to view himself as the same. Updike wanted to implement an obvious implication with Sammy’s so-called chivalrous act. Yet, Updike blatantly — and humorously — made Sammy an easier target to laugh at, rather than some defiant protagonist defiling the rules of the modern era.
This story has a very complex nature, but with analysis, it can be defined in just a few words: choices lead to consequences. In this case, Sammy practically ruined his perfectly good job. What makes it even funnier is that right after Sammy quits his job, he rushes outside, hoping to see the girls and have them look at him like some kind of hero, but they are gone before he can breathe in the fresh summer harbor air.
And with the sullen sting that comes with ruining Sammy’s job, he walks the promenade, knowing his parents will be disappointed and holds his head low to the ground. This story promptly gives birth to the new beginnings that the 1960s created. It was a radiant decade filled with protest and intriguing literature.
Updike was a key component in creating this radiance, as his novels and short stories, like “A&P,” made the 1960s one of the most influential decades of all time.
And then there are people like Sammy, who think that life should always go his way, but it rarely happens in the end. Ironically, though, we should all be like Sammy because success, for the most part, comes from failure.
Drake Dyer is a freshman at UT this year studying Finance. He can be reached at [email protected].
Columns and letters of The Daily Beacon are the views of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Beacon or the Beacon’s editorial staff.
Columnist Drake Dyer discusses his favorite short story that just so happens to taken place in an A&P grocery store and investigates why John Updike wrote "A&P" in the first place.
