The Detailed Setting Of John Updike’s “A & P”

The setting of A & P is developed with great detail. For example, Updike describes a specific event where, “… [the girls] shuffeled out of sight behind a pyramid of diet delight peaches.” Statements like this are what make this story so interesting. Updike could have simply said behind a pyramid of cans, but he goes into great detail, using the name of the canned product.

… [i]f you stand at our front doors you can see two banks and the Congregational church and the newspaper store and three real-estate offices and about twenty-seven old freeloaders tearing up Central Street because the sewer broke again.

Updike also goes into great detail about how the world outside of the A & P looks. “

The greatest detail of the story is not of the surroundings, but the detailed image of the three girls that enter the store in which Sammy works. Sammy takes each of the three girls separately and describes them one by one.

… [o]ur town is five miles from a beach … we're right in the middle of town.” Sammy describes what is not visible from the front doors of the A & P which makes his description even more vivid. By applying such vivid descriptions Updike is trying to show the expressivity of Sammy. Sammy gives precise detail about the setting outside the store to allow the reader to step into the scene and imagine the A & P surroundings as if they are actually there. “After awhile they come around out of the far aisle, around the light bulbs, records at discount of the Caribbean Six or Tony Martin Sings or some such gunk you wonder they waste the wax on …[.]” When Sammy is describing what items can be found in that aisle he describes the individual names not just the general product. Updike portrays Sammy as an articulate person through his precise detail of describing the contents in the store and the surrounding areas.

She had on a kind of dirty-pink -- beige maybe, I don't know

Some topics in this essay:
Sammy Sammy, Martin Sings, Central Street, John Updike, , sammy sammy, updike describes, descriptive words colorful, basic story, words colorful imagery, view sammy, colorful imagery, descriptive words, sammy describes, words colorful, goes detail, precise detail,