Analyzing Updike's 'A & P'
Assignment 1: Answer questions 1, 2, & 8 on P21.
1. Notice how artfully Updike arranges details to set the story in a perfectly ordinary supermarket. What details stands out a particularly true to life? What does this close attention to detail contribute to the story?
According to Updike, A&P is an ordinary supermarket with ordinary people. Sammy described customer's looking at groceries, checking their list to make sure they have everything they needed. In relations to the story, the narrator visual description did indeed have an insight of true to life scenario. For instance, Updike arranged a few more scenario that also stand out to be particularly true to life. For example, the narrator gave an imagery setting of the supermarket located …show more content…
He tries to keep his promise to her by making Sonny stay with Isabel and her family while he is away. But, Sonny ends up dropping out of school and joins the navy. When they got back the older brother tried to help Sonny, but all they did was fight and finally he gave up on Sonny. Then he tries to help Sonny again, by letting him stay at his house after he got clean.
6. The major characters in this story are called Mama, Daddy, and Sonny (the older brother is never named or even nicknamed). How do these names affect our sense of the story?
-Giving only one character a specific name really pull’s the reader’s focus him. It just shows how important his character is to the story.
-The names of the major characters affect the story, by showing that they were close. The names of these major characters were Mama, Daddy, and Sonny, relates to the fact that everyone has a family, which connects the story to the audience. The fact that the older brother was not named puts the reader themselves in the story.
Assignment 4: Rewrite one of the stories--"A & P", "A Rose for Emily" or "Sonny's Blues"--from a different perspective, a different person's view. You need only write a couple of paragraphs, not the entire …show more content…
There isn’t even a single named narrator who’s name we follow. Instead, it’s “our town.” My perspective on this is as if the town itself is telling the story, or one person is sharing multiple perspectives gleamed from rumors. Small towns tend to have a collective consciousness that narrates the story. As the daughter of the towns patron, Miss Emily kind belongs to the town. It’s a lot more like how we view the celebrities today. She is the subject of scrutiny and curiosity. Her father considered the town to belong to him well as Emily herself. As a result, she belonged to the town.
An example of this description of how Emily stopped coming out of the house. “That was two years after her father’s death and a short time after her sweetheart – the one we believed would marry her – had deserted her. After, her father’s death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all. The use of “we believed” and “people hardy saw her at all” demonstrates his collective consciousness. The town puts its information together, and the town is the
1. Notice how artfully Updike arranges details to set the story in a perfectly ordinary supermarket. What details stands out a particularly true to life? What does this close attention to detail contribute to the story?
According to Updike, A&P is an ordinary supermarket with ordinary people. Sammy described customer's looking at groceries, checking their list to make sure they have everything they needed. In relations to the story, the narrator visual description did indeed have an insight of true to life scenario. For instance, Updike arranged a few more scenario that also stand out to be particularly true to life. For example, the narrator gave an imagery setting of the supermarket located …show more content…
He tries to keep his promise to her by making Sonny stay with Isabel and her family while he is away. But, Sonny ends up dropping out of school and joins the navy. When they got back the older brother tried to help Sonny, but all they did was fight and finally he gave up on Sonny. Then he tries to help Sonny again, by letting him stay at his house after he got clean.
6. The major characters in this story are called Mama, Daddy, and Sonny (the older brother is never named or even nicknamed). How do these names affect our sense of the story?
-Giving only one character a specific name really pull’s the reader’s focus him. It just shows how important his character is to the story.
-The names of the major characters affect the story, by showing that they were close. The names of these major characters were Mama, Daddy, and Sonny, relates to the fact that everyone has a family, which connects the story to the audience. The fact that the older brother was not named puts the reader themselves in the story.
Assignment 4: Rewrite one of the stories--"A & P", "A Rose for Emily" or "Sonny's Blues"--from a different perspective, a different person's view. You need only write a couple of paragraphs, not the entire …show more content…
There isn’t even a single named narrator who’s name we follow. Instead, it’s “our town.” My perspective on this is as if the town itself is telling the story, or one person is sharing multiple perspectives gleamed from rumors. Small towns tend to have a collective consciousness that narrates the story. As the daughter of the towns patron, Miss Emily kind belongs to the town. It’s a lot more like how we view the celebrities today. She is the subject of scrutiny and curiosity. Her father considered the town to belong to him well as Emily herself. As a result, she belonged to the town.
An example of this description of how Emily stopped coming out of the house. “That was two years after her father’s death and a short time after her sweetheart – the one we believed would marry her – had deserted her. After, her father’s death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all. The use of “we believed” and “people hardy saw her at all” demonstrates his collective consciousness. The town puts its information together, and the town is the