A&P analysis

Immaturity Every coming of age story of the development of someone to maturity first starts with immaturity. In John Updike’s short story “A&P” he writes about a 19 year old named Sammy who grows up through his immaturity. In this essay I will be writing about how John Updike uses analogies, point of view, and plot to describe Sammy’s coming of age story. In this coming of age story the immaturity of Sammy is largely presented in the analogies he uses. For example when Updike writes, “… twenty-seven old freeloaders tearing up Central Street because the sewer broke again”(150). Here Sammy is describing twenty-seven construction workers as “freeloaders”, implying that they are just standing around doing nothing when they are trying to fix a problem in town. Another thing Sammy does a lot in the story is describe people as animals, mainly sheep. Sammy says, “The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle”(Updike 149), and “… I could see Lengel in my place in the slot, checking the sheep through”(Updike 153). Clearly Sammy sees himself as a higher class and more intellectual person than these sheep coming through the store. Sammy also describes them as pigs when he says, “A couple of customers that had been heading for my slot begin to knock against each other, like scared pigs in a chute”(Updike 152). While analogies show how he thinks of himself the point of view lets you see from Sammy’s side how he comes of age. The point of view used by John Updike really lets you see from Sammy’s perspective. Without Sammy’s perspective seeing how he progresses throughout the story could not happen. The analogies also come into play here. For example when Sammy says, “The whole store was like a pinball machine and I didn’t know which tunnel they’d come out of”(Updike 150). Updike really describes the visual of how Sammy and Stokesie were anxiously waiting to see where they would appear. The point of view allows the reader to see how Sammy feels. For example when