Sentences And Prepositions In John Updike's A & P

and we can see the –ed suffix thus concluding the change to past tense. In the second paragraph, Sammy begins sharing the story in past tense as shown through the many –ed suffixed; he maintains this tense through the following proceeding eleven paragraphs. Midway through a paragraph, and midway through a train of thought, the narrator switches once again to the present tense. He says “Now her hands are empty, not a ring or a bracelet, bare as God made them, and I wonder where the money's coming from” (Updike, A&P). He stays in the present for a few sentences, but then quickly transitions back to the past tense for one paragraph. Sammy goes back to the present tense once more by saying “Queenie blushes, though maybe it's just a brush of sunburn
I was noticing for the first time, now that she was so close” (Updike, A&P). The narrator switches back and forth several more times throughout the course of the story. The use of this is a bit distracting from the story, but as this is a published work from a well known author, one could conclude that this was done intentionally for stylistic purposes. When examining and functions of A&P, verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions are all factors that should be examined.
“Verbs can be defined notionally (on the basis of meaning), formally (on the basis of the changes they undergo when they are used), or functionally (on the basis of what they do in sentences)” (Rodby 55). Notionally speaking, verbs “name an action or state of being” (Roby 56). Sentences that contain verbs can be classified s are either transitive, intransitive, or linking. Transitive verbs contain one or more object, intransitive verbs contain no object, while linking verbs show the relationship between the subject of the sentences and the noun or adjective being linked to it. In A&P, readers can see several examples of simple verbs. “In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits” (Updike, A&P); in this instance, the obvious verb would be “walks”. “I'm in the third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see them until they're over by the bread” (Updike, A&P). In this example, the word “see” acts as a
verb. Nouns can be singular, or plural, they can be common or proper and “are the heads of noun phrases” (Rodby 113).
In A&P, it is much more likely to find common nouns as opposed to proper nouns. Common nouns are all around us and make up a great amount of most sentences. For example, in the sentence “You never know for sure how girls' minds work (do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?)” (Updike, A&P), the common nouns would be “girls’”, “minds”, “bee”, and “glass jar”. These are all common words, or things, thus making them common nouns. In the sentence “I forgot to say he thinks he's going to be manager some sunny day, maybe in 1990 when it's called the Great Alexandrov and Petrooshki Tea Company or something” (Updike, A&P). In this example “Great Alexandrov”, and “Petrooshki Tea Company” are both proper nouns because they name wither a location, or a person; in this case these are proper nouns because they are names of a location. As previously mentioned, nouns can either be singular, or plural. Singular nouns are nouns in which only one, single object is being presented, while plural nouns present two or more objects .In the sentence “He pointed, they pointed, and they shuffled out of sight behind a pyramid of Diet Delight peaches” (Updike, A&P), “Dirty Delight peaches” the word peaches functions as a plural noun, while as previously discussed “Dirty Delight peaches” would function as a proper noun as it reflects a brand
name. Other examples of plural nouns throughout the story are the following words: pipes, eyes, shoulders, flies, customers, heels, toes, eyebrows, goodies, and straps. Examples of singular nouns are reflected throughout the story as well. For example, in the sentence “I'm in the third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see them until they're over by the bread” (Updike, A&P) the words “slot”, “door”, and “bread” are all singular