John Updike A & P Style Analysis

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The meaning of a piece of writing and the way it is written are nearly the same on level of importance. This is because before an author can create a story, she/he must first decide how he is going to do it. This is referred to as style. In John Updike’s short story, “A & P,” he creates a narrator with distinguishable style through the use concrete diction, minimal dialogue, and characterization. Sammy, the voice of “A & P,” is an awkward kid who is on the brink of adult-hood. In this story, which takes place over the course of just twenty minutes maybe, Sammy encounters a brood awakening about adult hood and how difficult it can be to exit adolescence. Updike’s use of concrete diction helps establish the exact narrative style that he’s going for: an imprudent and witty 19 year-old boy with a keen imagination in regards to the opposite sex. The way Sammy, a cashier at A & P, thinks is unconventional. “In walks…show more content…
The qualities that the diction and dialogue bring out in Sammy are ultimately what indicate a transition beginning to take place in his life. Sammy is in his last year of being a teenager and displays extremely immature qualities, the worst of them all being his impulsivity. Sammy quits his job not in some heroic effort to right a social wrong or even because he dislikes his job, but because he wants to impress three strangers who will probably never think of the act again. Sammy quickly realizes that prioritizing females over a job was probably the wrong decision when he is outside of his former place of work “[feeling] how hard the world would be to [him] hereafter.” Once he has stepped out of A & P, he has not just stepped outside, but into another part of his life: adult hood. This transition for the painfully obviously unprepared Sammy is uncomfortable to watch unfold because the reader knows that he is doomed based off of his mindset and

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