In the short story “A&P”, John Updike uses point of view and characterization to show a certain theme. He writes about a 19 year old boy who see’s himself as much more than he isuntil a group of girls walks into the store where he works one day. Through point of view and characterization, Updike develops a more understood theme.
John Updike writes in first person subjective in order to show how Sammy is emotionally attached to his story that he is telling, which also proves the point of which Sammy is an unreliable narrator because he’s only telling us the story from his point of view and how the story happened to him. Using first person subjective to show the story through Sammy’s eyes shows us the theme of appearances because we see how Sammy views the people walking into the store, with his thoughts and that shows how appearances matter more than anything else in the first moment. Sammy is seen as unreliable because with first person subjective, only
Sammy’s opinion is being told so you only get to hear one side of the story. Point of view also shows how Sammys views the all of the characters and how the characters affect him or make him feel. An example of point of view showing the theme appearances is when sammy talks about the girls as being pretty and more upper class but then Lendel doesn’t agree with him at all. This shows point of view because if it were shown from Lengels point of view then it would be shown as a completely different view of the girls. Also Updike uses point of view to show the theme of appearances when Sammy describes Lendel, “ Lengels pretty dreary, teaches sunday school and the rest, but he doesn’t miss that much.” This is only how Sammy views Lengel from
Sammys point