A & P By John Updike Analysis
Malina Janssen
English 1320
Danny Peters
March 2nd, 2015
Analysis from the three stories
In the story A&P by John Updike, it kind of made me feel uncomfortable and confused. I wasn’t completely sure about whether or not the narrator, which was the guy at the cash register, quit because he liked the one main girl or because he was really offended. This story just seems like it was written to entertain but not really to uphold a purpose towards anything. If anything the one thing I got out of this story was to definitely not go walking around in my swimsuit at Wal-Mart or HEB. An interesting thing from this story was the use of description. The word choice really portrayed strong imagery. For Example when he says, “She had sort of oaky hair …show more content…
that the sun and salt had bleached.” This sentence was one out of many that really helped me picture what the girls looked like and about what the scenery looked like as well. The next story called Five Stories by Lydia Davis consisted of 5 stories called, The Mice, The Outing, Odd Behavior, Fear, and Lost Things.
In the first piece it made me feel really uncomfortable and grossed out because they spoke about how they were offended with the mice not coming to their kitchen when there was more crumbs lying around compared to the tidy kitchens. It made me feel uncomfortable because just thinking about how the people in the story were perfectly okay with their kitchen being a dumpster pretty much was just not normal. The next stories called The Outing and Fear, kind of go together in theme. They both gave me an emotional response. The author was obviously trying to make the reader feel something. The author also is trying to portray that we as humans all have common fears and common emotions. And that we should be able to come together to comfort each other in those times of needs because its apart of human nature. Then the last two stories called Odd Behavior and Lost Things had me questioning what I was reading. Both of these stories to me are very confusing. I feel like when the author wrote them they weren’t really trying to reflect any reasoning behind it. There could be some reasoning behind the story Lost Things, but I don’t understand it at
all. The last story is called Refresh, Refresh by Benjamin Percy. This story overall was pretty interesting yet some parts were kind of intense and disturbing. I could personally relate to this story somewhat because my dad is also in the military and he gets stationed out. But, It’s not quite the same because my dad lives in a different state and I’ve never lived with him, only with my grandma. The story did hit me personally still because it’s emotional to see your dad leave not knowing if he will be coming back safe or not. Yet, with this story I still somewhat feel like their talking down on the soldiers that enlist. It is hard to fully understand the viewpoint of the author because at one point the men are drunk fools and the next their memorable fathers. I guess the author is trying to be realistic. The story was decent then it got disturbing towards the end after the boys found out about their fathers. It made sense for them to feel resentful and angry because he was the recruitment officer but its not like he chose them specifically to go and not like he was the reason they actually died. I don’t know it just seemed a little bit overboard whenever they were pretty much torturing Dave Lightener. This story was influencing and it hit me personally but it was also somewhat disturbing and dramatic.
English 1320
Danny Peters
March 2nd, 2015
Analysis from the three stories
In the story A&P by John Updike, it kind of made me feel uncomfortable and confused. I wasn’t completely sure about whether or not the narrator, which was the guy at the cash register, quit because he liked the one main girl or because he was really offended. This story just seems like it was written to entertain but not really to uphold a purpose towards anything. If anything the one thing I got out of this story was to definitely not go walking around in my swimsuit at Wal-Mart or HEB. An interesting thing from this story was the use of description. The word choice really portrayed strong imagery. For Example when he says, “She had sort of oaky hair …show more content…
that the sun and salt had bleached.” This sentence was one out of many that really helped me picture what the girls looked like and about what the scenery looked like as well. The next story called Five Stories by Lydia Davis consisted of 5 stories called, The Mice, The Outing, Odd Behavior, Fear, and Lost Things.
In the first piece it made me feel really uncomfortable and grossed out because they spoke about how they were offended with the mice not coming to their kitchen when there was more crumbs lying around compared to the tidy kitchens. It made me feel uncomfortable because just thinking about how the people in the story were perfectly okay with their kitchen being a dumpster pretty much was just not normal. The next stories called The Outing and Fear, kind of go together in theme. They both gave me an emotional response. The author was obviously trying to make the reader feel something. The author also is trying to portray that we as humans all have common fears and common emotions. And that we should be able to come together to comfort each other in those times of needs because its apart of human nature. Then the last two stories called Odd Behavior and Lost Things had me questioning what I was reading. Both of these stories to me are very confusing. I feel like when the author wrote them they weren’t really trying to reflect any reasoning behind it. There could be some reasoning behind the story Lost Things, but I don’t understand it at
all. The last story is called Refresh, Refresh by Benjamin Percy. This story overall was pretty interesting yet some parts were kind of intense and disturbing. I could personally relate to this story somewhat because my dad is also in the military and he gets stationed out. But, It’s not quite the same because my dad lives in a different state and I’ve never lived with him, only with my grandma. The story did hit me personally still because it’s emotional to see your dad leave not knowing if he will be coming back safe or not. Yet, with this story I still somewhat feel like their talking down on the soldiers that enlist. It is hard to fully understand the viewpoint of the author because at one point the men are drunk fools and the next their memorable fathers. I guess the author is trying to be realistic. The story was decent then it got disturbing towards the end after the boys found out about their fathers. It made sense for them to feel resentful and angry because he was the recruitment officer but its not like he chose them specifically to go and not like he was the reason they actually died. I don’t know it just seemed a little bit overboard whenever they were pretty much torturing Dave Lightener. This story was influencing and it hit me personally but it was also somewhat disturbing and dramatic.