Term Paper on "Setting Analysis of John Updike's Short Story"

Term Paper 3 pages (1048 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Setting Analysis of John Updike's short story "A&P"

The title of John Updike's short story "A&P" refers to this story's setting in the sense of its immediate, physical place. In other words, the story is about a young man who works in a supermarket, and the story is set in an "A&P," part of a commercial chain of supermarkets during an indeterminate contemporary time, probably around the early 1960's when Updike first authored "A&P." However, the notion of a story's setting involves more than simply the tale's geographic location in an immediate sense. It also includes the short story's atmosphere, and the relationship of the characters to a larger sense of "place, [in A&P, probably suburban New England in a resort community like Cape Cod] time, and even "weather and clothes." (Burroway, p.171) Or, in the case of "A&P" one might be tempted to add, the lack thereof of clothes, in the case of the girls that stalk the aisles of the air-conditioned store one summer afternoon.

Setting thus takes into consideration the different characters' emotional relationships with the place's setting, and how the characters feel about the place where they are located. For instance, Sammy, Updike's nineteen-year-old cashier and main protagonist feels much less positively about the store where he works, as opposed to, for instance the "cash-register watchers" who may regard catching poor cashiers like Sammy in an error as the highlight of their week. Rather than a dreary place, to such exuberant housewives, the A&P might seem like a paradise of sales and opportunities to show their shopping prowess rather than a place where one labors for little thanks on a nice summer day. (Updike, p.204) If the story were narrated from the perspective of one of these rouged harridans, it would be a very different tale indeed, especially after Queenie and her crew passes through the store's doors.

The fact that it is summer is also a crucial aspect of the narrative, as this otherwise enclosed community is now subject to an onslaught of relatively more affluent outsiders. The 'queen' who traipses through the aisles of the store half-naked in her bathing suit, on an errand to buy herring snacks is part of these 'summer people.' Her purchase is an evident appetizer for a swishy cocktail party for her parents -- at least in the casher's fantasy of her life. "All of a sudden I slid right down her voice into her living room. Her father and the other men were standing around in ice-creme coats and bow ties." His parents are of a different social and economic class; they are not of the summer crew. "When my parents have somebody over they get lemonade and if it's a real racy affair Schlitz in tall glasses with 'They'll Do it Every Time' cartoons stenciled on." (Updike, p.208)

Thus it is unlikely that girls of their 'class' would be in this suburban Boston community, unless it was summer, nor would Sammy feel so frustrated, being cooped up inside, were it not so nice outside -- and also the girls would not have been dressed so provocatively, were it not summer. (Saldivar,… READ MORE

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