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The Life and Work of John Updike

            When we speak about accomplished authors of the 20th century often times the name John Updike goes unsaid. John Updike is a well decorated author he has received multiple awards and recognition for his literary work. Outside of literature his humanitarian work has gotten him praise from even Presidents such as George H.W Bush, Senior and Junior. I think it's fair for me to do John Updike some justice and take a second to spread some insight on the life and death of one of the most accomplished authors of the recent century. .
             John Updike was born on March 18th 1932 in Reading, Pennsylvania. He spend the early portion of his life in the town of Shillington a small town near Reading. His father was an educator and spent his days teaching science. At the age of 13 his family moved to a stone house on an 80 acre farm. At this early age John indulge himself in books of popular fiction such and humor and mystery novels. At this age he also showed interest in fine art his mother was a great encouragement and pushed him to pressure art and literature. He did extremely well in school and was elected president and co-valedictorian of his graduating class. After high school he received a tuition scholarship to attend the prestigious Harvard University. He graduated from Harvard summa cum laude in 1954. While in college he married his first wife Mary E. Pennington and after graduation they moved to England where John art at Oxford's Ruskin School of Drawing and fine art. While in England John's first daughter was born. After his exploration of England, He and his now family of 3 moved back to the United States and settled in Manhattan, New York City. After the birth of his son he and his family moved to Ipswich, Massachusetts where he settled down and started to focus on his novels. .
             Updike received a national book award for his novel the centaur it was inspired by his childhood growing up in Pennsylvania.


Essays Related to The Life and Work of John Updike

1. Story Analysis - Son by John Updike

John Updike is a well-recognized American author known for his novels and short stories in the realm of fiction. ... His work also displays American life throughout seventy year. ... Through his writing, John Updike quintessentially captured America`s middle class, ("Editors, Critics Reflect on the Life of Author John Updike.")... Well many critic are in strong favor of Updike's work he does receive a fair amount of criticism. Many critics agree that Updike's work later work became boring and repetitive. ...

  • Word Count: 977
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

2. John Updike - Great American Author

Updike life was a metaphoric house with many doors with many rooms. ... He never wrote under a pen name", he has always been know as the author John Updike, he's middle name Hoyer. ... Shortly after graduation he worked as a copy boy for the Reading Eagle Newspaper. ... According to the New Yorker, John Updike only worked for the New Yorker for two years and left after the birth of his second child, David. ... Through his writings he continues to use many experiences in his life. ...

  • Word Count: 1146
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

3. The Change

The story of "A & P", by John Updike, is about a nineteen-year-old, Sammy, that works as a checker in a grocery store. Sammy hates dealing with the same repetitive motions of his job, by which he creates a fantasy life of each customer to escape the doldrums of his job. ... (Updike, 103). ... He questioned "how girls" minds work (do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?)"... We are all, in some aspects, similar to John Updike's main character, Sammy, in A & P. ...

  • Word Count: 1342
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

4. A&P and Araby

John Updike's A & P and James Joyce's Araby share many of the same literary traits. ... While the story remains the same, the climate is singular only to Updike. ... Telling the tale as a way of looking back on his life, the protagonist allows the reader to follow his life's lessons as they are learned, imparting upon the audience all the emotional pain and suffering endured for each one. ... As much as Updike's rendition is different from Joyce's original work, the two pieces are as closely related as any literary writings can be. ... Both have lost sight of what is i...

  • Word Count: 1241
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

5. John Updike's "A & P"

In John Updike's short story "A & P", the protagonist, Sammy, is an adolescent boy whose roots come from the conservative and conventional small town working class, who dreams of branching out to the more elaborate, flashy and non-conformist life that he presumes the girls in swim suits live. ... Throughout the story, we find that Sammy is growing disenchanted with his life from his constant references about the shoppers being like sheep and of his friend Stoksie's only plans for the future being that he will one day become the manager of the A & P, commenting that he and Stoksie are...

  • Word Count: 366
  • Approx Pages: 1
  • Grade Level: High School

6. A And P By John Updike

Like so many short stories, John Updike's "A & P- is primarily a story of initiation, as a young boy moves from innocence or ignorance to experience or knowledge. ... He manages to find amusement in his work by making sarcastic observations of customers, by exchanging irreverent barter with Stokesie, his fellow worker, by ogling girls. ... "He removes his apron and bow tie, and leaves the market- (Updike 215). ... Instead of his dream girl, he is met with a premonition of the realities of married life: a young mother yelling at her spoiled children. Sammy realizes the truth of his last wo...

  • Word Count: 1750
  • Approx Pages: 7

7. A and P by John Updike

Like so many short stories, John Updike's "A & P- is primarily a story of initiation, as a young boy moves from innocence or ignorance to experience or knowledge. ... He manages to find amusement in his work by making sarcastic observations of customers, by exchanging irreverent barter with Stokesie, his fellow worker, by ogling girls. ... "He removes his apron and bow tie, and leaves the market- (Updike 215). ... Instead of his dream girl, he is met with a premonition of the realities of married life: a young mother yelling at her spoiled children. Sammy realizes the truth of his last wo...

  • Word Count: 1705
  • Approx Pages: 7

8. The Concept of Chivalry in Literature

While Sammy, the young store clerk, from John Updike's story "A&P", shows us how a young boy believes chivalry is the decisive way into a girl's heart to defend her honor. ... "Dear John! ... She is not to work on her writing or talk about her condition. ... "Queenie's blush is no sunburn now" (Updike 143). ... " 'You'll feel this for the rest of your life," Lengel says, and I know that's true, too, but remembering how he made that pretty girl blush makes me so scrunchy inside I punch the No Sale tab' " (Updike 144)....

  • Word Count: 990
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

9. Character Analysis - A&P by John Updike

In John Updike's short story, "A&P ", includes Sammy, the protagonists, Lengel, the store manager, three girls, who walk into the store wearing only bathing suits, and the local people who are as well shopping through the grocery store. ... John Updike's "A&P"" expresses an artful beginning through his deep description of the three girls in their bathing suits when they first walk into the store. ... I mean, it was more than pretty" (Updike). ... These aspects of the middle of this story are "something crucial within life that is illumined as nowhere else, put on radiant, consequent...

  • Word Count: 2200
  • Approx Pages: 9
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

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