People consciously or unconsciously fit into the social framework of the culture in which they live in. John Updike’s short story demonstrates the destruction of these social and cultural canons, using a sharp collision between conformity and nonconformity. John Updike tells the story of an ordinary cashier, Sammy, who quit his job after his manager shamed three girls who came to the supermarket in swimsuits. Sammy’s action is a deliberate defiance of conformity, while the girls violated the policy of the supermarket without intent. Updike confronts conformity and non-conformity using the literary devices of contrast and symbolism to emphasize this opposition.
The first technique that Updike uses to reveal the topic of confrontation between conformity and nonconformity is contrast. This literary device serves as a sharping frame for the entire short story, revealing itself in the vocabulary and system of characters’ images. At the level of characters, the story introduces two classes of people, reflecting conformity and nonconformity. The first class includes the manager Lengel, responsible for the policy of the supermarket, Sammy’s disapproving parents and his colleague Stokesie. The second class of characters represent nonconformity, and includes three girls in swimsuits led by Queenie and Sammy himself. To the first, larger social class, the author ascribes the qualities of constraint by obligations, children and marriage, and their appearance, like that of Stokesie and buyers, is unsightly. The second opposing class demonstrates freedom and dissent, all of them are young and do not want to live in imposed social norms. Two opposing classes of social norm-breakers and norm-observers collide at the story’s climax when Sammy quits in defiance of social morality.
To emphasize the contrast between conformity and nonconformity, Updike uses a contrast at the level of the vocabulary of a short story. Updike describes the protagonist’s surprise by clashing opposing concepts: “It’s one thing to have a girl in a bathing suit down in the beach…and another thing in the cool of the A&P, under the fluorescent lights” (Gioia and Kennedy 21). With the help of this phrase, it is possible to imagine two opposite coexisting worlds with their own laws. For the main character, the beach is associated with a sunny place and freedom of expression. The supermarket is a cold, alien place; fluorescent lamps not only emphasize the coolness of the room, but also refer to rigor and restraint. It is a type of light that brings out imperfections and inconsistencies through its brightness and coolness. For Sammy, this world is alien, and he resists against its rules and norms. The protagonist comes out of a cold room with artificial light, and he is bathed in the warmth of the sun, which symbolizes his craving for freedom from prejudice against the severity and restraint of the established order.
The second device that Updike uses to emphasize the opposition of conformism and nonconformism is symbolism. The author introduces several archetypes of animals into the short story to correlate them with the characters: sheep and pigs belong to the class of adherents of social norms. Updike compares supermarket shoppers to “the sheep, pushing carts down the aisle” (Gioia and Kennedy 20). Another simile is introduced at the end of the story: “like scared pigs in a chute” and “checking the sheep through” (Gioia and Kennedy 23-24). This symbolic series associatively relates to restrictions, causing an intuitive comparison with farm animals in pens or cages. The walls and shelves of the supermarket are frames that restrict freedom of movement, like fences on farms. Captured in the moment, neither the customers nor the second cashier and manager can get out of these restrictions by accepting this order of life.
Three girls in bathing suits, representing nonconformists, are symbolically compared to bees. The author describes their thoughts as “little buzz like a bee in a glass jar” (Gioia and Kennedy 20). The bees, in the context of the short story’s symbolism, represent freedom from restrictions. Like bees, girls fly into the traditional world that opposes them and just as freely leave it. The bees can break out of the imposed frames and fly over the fence that limits the other characters in the story. Introducing the symbolism of the animal world into the narrative, Updike emphasizes the limits of the prevailing social order. It seems to be imposed and simplifies the actual state of affairs. The only way to get free is to challenge the rules and leave the metaphorical fence, which is what the main character does.
In conclusion, “A&P” is an allegorical narrative about the opposition of conformity and nonconformity. To emphasize this struggle, Updike uses literary devices of contrast and symbolism. The contrast in the narrative is expressed through the opposition of images, the classification of characters and the use of emphasizing vocabulary. Updike’s symbolism refers readers to animal comparisons, that conformists represent sheep and pigs, and nonconformists are compared to bees. Within the framework of a short story, the author manages to show the dynamic struggle of the supporters of the social order and the fighters against it.
Work Cited
Gioia, Dana, and Kennedy, X. J. Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Pearson, 2019.