John Updike’s “a&P�? Essay Example
John Updike’s “A&P”
John Updike's short story "A & P" shows you that there is a very thin line between being a hero and being stupid. I do admire the courage of the morally ambitious teenager who decides to standup and defend the young women’s honor in true fairy tale fashion. However, I can also see a sense of stupidity that occurs when you take a young adolescent teenager making off-the-hip decisions in order to impress the opposite sex. The decisions are hardly ever logic driven but for some strange reason they seem to always make sense at the time. For example, in Sammie’s mind he was making the right decision and as he walks out of the store thinking he is going to collect his reward for standing up for the girls he realizes that his efforts went unnoticed as he says “I look around for my girls, but they're gone, of course. There wasn't anybody but some young married screaming with her children about some candy they didn't get by the door of a powder-blue Falcon station wagon.” The only stupid mistake that a person can make is the mistake that he did not learn from.
I once heard a quote in a movie that unfortunately the quote stuck with me more than the movie did as I can not remember what the name of it is. Regardless, the quote said “The reason we fall is so that we can pick ourselves back up.” I mention this because the last sentence of this short story leaves you with a slight chill. Yes the world is going to seem a bit harsher to Sammie, but this is because he is no longer going to be naïve about choices he makes in life. This was a very important lesson in life that needed to be learned and its better that it be learned early rather than later and it’s what he does with this information that determines how hard the world is going to be going forward.
Saldivar, Toni. “The Art of John Updike’s ‘A&P.’” BNET Business Network. Spring 1997
This is a great article comparing John Updike’s “A&P” to Botticelli’s art and Pater’s Aestheticism. The
John Updike's short story "A & P" shows you that there is a very thin line between being a hero and being stupid. I do admire the courage of the morally ambitious teenager who decides to standup and defend the young women’s honor in true fairy tale fashion. However, I can also see a sense of stupidity that occurs when you take a young adolescent teenager making off-the-hip decisions in order to impress the opposite sex. The decisions are hardly ever logic driven but for some strange reason they seem to always make sense at the time. For example, in Sammie’s mind he was making the right decision and as he walks out of the store thinking he is going to collect his reward for standing up for the girls he realizes that his efforts went unnoticed as he says “I look around for my girls, but they're gone, of course. There wasn't anybody but some young married screaming with her children about some candy they didn't get by the door of a powder-blue Falcon station wagon.” The only stupid mistake that a person can make is the mistake that he did not learn from.
I once heard a quote in a movie that unfortunately the quote stuck with me more than the movie did as I can not remember what the name of it is. Regardless, the quote said “The reason we fall is so that we can pick ourselves back up.” I mention this because the last sentence of this short story leaves you with a slight chill. Yes the world is going to seem a bit harsher to Sammie, but this is because he is no longer going to be naïve about choices he makes in life. This was a very important lesson in life that needed to be learned and its better that it be learned early rather than later and it’s what he does with this information that determines how hard the world is going to be going forward.
Saldivar, Toni. “The Art of John Updike’s ‘A&P.’” BNET Business Network. Spring 1997
This is a great article comparing John Updike’s “A&P” to Botticelli’s art and Pater’s Aestheticism. The