After Reading
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Dr. Bordelon's The Short Story: On Campus |
Afterward to "A&P" Point of view rules this story. Written in the first person, everything in this story is filtered through Sammy’s mind. In fact, the only dialogue in the story are the snatches of conversation between Sammy and Stokesie commenting on the girls, the exchange between Lengel and Queenie, and Sammy telling Lengel quits. Still, while not much is actually said, we do gain a clear view of Sammy’s character. The tone and diction of a nineteen year old comes through clearly, but this technique leads to some interesting questions and complications. Why, for instance, does Updike allow so many unsavory details about Sammy to emerge? His feelings towards the women ("do you really think [they have] a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?") (1493) – and his close observation of their bodies ("a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit" [1492]) mark him as a (typical?) hormone crazed young male who only sees women for their bodies. This leads us to question his motives when he quits for the girls. Instead of being an "unsuspected hero" (1496), we see him as a creep who wants a date. But is it really that simple? It is only because we see what is on his mind that we judge his actions as self-serving. To someone like Lengel, his actions may seem more noble. After all, from Lengel’s point of view, Sammy quit not because he thought the girls were hot stuff, but because he was upset at the way Lengel had treated them: as he tells Lengel "You didn’t have to embarrass them" (1496). To Lengel, Sammy’s motives aren’t the stuff of hormones but of honor: he stood up for what he believed in. This complication, brought out by something as seemingly simple as the point of view of the narrator (Lengel – or anyone else in the story for that matter – can’t see the unsavory remarks Sammy makes), opens up the story from a simple tale of a young man who quits his job into a commentary on the nature of heroes and heroism and, more generally, motivation. Do we ever really know the true motives of a hero? Does a that fireman rescue that beautiful woman out of the burning building because he’s secretly been having an affair with her, or because it's his job and everyone expects it of him, or because he just wants to help? Without getting inside his head, we cannot know for sure. Another aspect of the story to consider is Sammy’s relation to the society he lives in. Does he feel comfortable among the "sheep" (1545, 1548) and Lengel (who’s "pretty dreary, teaches Sunday school and the rest" [1495])? Why does he make fun of "policy" by exaggerating its results and setting up a false dichotomy: "That’s policy for you. Policy is what the kingpins want. What the others want is juvenile delinquency" (1495)? Sammy seems to consciously set himself apart from his milieu. He seems, like many young adults, to be proud of his individuality and rebels against established conventions – be they dress codes, attitudes towards women, or even the herd mentality of the customers. By setting up this dichotomy, Updike brings up the classic theme of the individual v. society. It appears that Sammy, having experienced the life of Stokesie, Lengel, and the other "pigs in a chute" (1496) wants to assert himself and, in classic American style, sing his own version of "I just gotta' be me!" And what about the girls? The opening of the story "In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits" (1492) marks the girls as partners in Sammy’s (and their own?) endeavor to establish an identity separate from the world around them. This idea of rebelling against authority becomes clear when considering the title of the story. Why isn’t the story set in a mom and pop grocery/deli? (Where I grew up, this would be "Tags" [short for Taglavori’s]) What’s the significance of it being set in one of the first chain supermarkets? For starters, the idea of replication. Whenever you visit an A&P, whether in Alaska or Florida, the milk will always be on the left, and the bread will always be on the right. With the exception of some regional variations, the Alaska store and the Florida store will stock the same items – which makes it easier to make the large, profit-saving purchases that chain stores depend upon. This coporate uniformity, a kind of mind-numbing standardization, is part of the consumer culture that Sammy seems to be rebelling against. There is also a level of service (along with its correlative, servitude), exemplified by the white shirt and black bow tie (which, as Sammy informs us at the end of the story, "is theirs" [1496]), that is expected by the customers, and thus demanded of the employees. And of course, this being a corporation, instead of an owner, there is a manager, Lengel, who has the duty of enforcing the corporate mentality. Given all these resonances, the title, like the store itself, becomes a symbol of the oppressive world Sammy must leave to gain his individuality. For Sammy, the girls represent, quite literally, another world, one where people hold "drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them" (1495) in contrast to his own family's "Schlitz in tall glasses with 'They'll Do It Every Time' cartoons stenciled on" (1495). And consider what the girls go to store to purchase: "Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream" (1495) vs. what, Velveeta? Utz Potato Chips? Why are the girls so obviously from the upper classes? What other signs are there in the story of their social status? (What about their names? Voices? Etc.) Yet regardless of their class differences, for both Sammy and the girls the result of confronting society – at least the society in an A&P – is negative: unemployment for the one, embarrassment for the others. That’s the price that must be paid for asserting yourself in society. Things are not always easy for the individual. And Sammy’s odd closing remark "I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter" (1497) reads like a gloss on his future in life. But this, the epiphany of the story, is not as clear as it seems. The ambiguous wording of this final sentence leaves open the question of whether his difficulties would come from suppressing his desires to remain an individual, or from continuing to challenge authority. In other words, will he continue to quit jobs when he becomes jaded with the routine, or will he just grin and bear it – and die of peptic ulcer at thirty-five? What the author/critics say: "Ambiguous ceremonies of farewell dominate Pigeon Feathers [the collection "A&P" is taken from], as maturing characters begin to realize how far they have receded from the past and strive to accommodated themselves to the present" (Luscher 23). "Unhappiness in an Updike story moves the character not to large-scale significant action but to quiet frustration, and thus some readers respond by saying that nothing happens. Plot and characterization often give way to layers of meaning usually dependent upon an image or a gesture so that dramatization becomes meditation. The question to ask, it seems to me, is not what happens but what is felt or exposed" (Greiner 92). Greiner, Donald J. The Other John Updike: Poems/Short Stories Prose/Play. Athens, Ohio: OUP, 1981. Luscher, Robert. John Updike: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1993. Afterward to "The Colonel" This short short story (classified as a prose poem in many textbooks), creates a fully inhabited world in the space of a short paragraph. We can tell that the incident takes place in a South American country, probably ruled by a military junta ("brief commercial in Spanish," "green mangoes," "As for the rights of anyone . . ."). A resistance movement is implied from the gratings on the windows, the "Broken bottles embedded in the walls," and most tellingly, when the narrator notes "there was some talk of how difficult it had become to govern." The narrator is a visitor ("I was asked how I enjoyed the country") and poet who the Colonel feels he needs to threaten – or impress – with his bag of ears. An air of tension is introduced early in the story. Even the cryptically familiar opening line is weighted with danger. What we have "heard" about something is often negative – a warning. Even the flat, even tone, far from draining tension from the scene, adds an air of veracity to the proceedings, a feeling that the narrator is merely reporting what has occurred which heightens the emotional effect. The odd mix of details, with the mundane and menacing shoved together – "daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion" is another element that suggests this is no ordinary dinner party. By the end of the paragraph, the situation has changed from small talk around a table over glasses of "good wine," to the challenge of the Colonel: "tell your people they can go fuck themselves." And, of course, there are the ears – or more specifically "human ears," a distinction that sends a shiver down our spines. A synecdoche (a part which can stand for the whole) for a body (life), it represents the barbarism of the regime in power, and the brutality of man in general. The Colonel’s inhumanity and utter callousness is revealed by the grocery "sack" he uses to hold body parts – as if the ears were merely a commodity, a product to be bought and sold – and his casual handling of them. The ears, of course, lead us to the final sentences. But they were there in spirit from the first: "What you have heard is true" (my italics). Rumor, messages passed from ear to ear, is a constant murmur heard throughout the story, and the element of conversation of the dinner itself makes speaking, listening – ears – an integral element of the narrative. The friend warns "say nothing" so the ears hear only the voice the Colonel, preening, luxuriating in his malevolence. But do his final words – "Something for your poetry, no?" – offer a glimmer of hope? Poetry, or more generally, literature, or even more generally, words, have the potential to inspire, to uplift and offer hope among the oppressed. While the ears can no longer hear, they can still communicate. Even though literally disconnected from bodies, they speak volumes of the inhumanity and barbarity which people, usually with the blessing of government agency, are capable of inflicting as they pursue a never reached "greater good." © 2000 David Bordelon
© 2008 David Bordelon
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