An argumentative essay "A&P" by John Updike

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A&P by John Updike
A&P`s plot is pretty simple. Here is a teenager named Sammy, bored with working at the A&P. Three pretty girls wearing swim suits enter his workplace and causes commotion in the otherwise orderly store. The store manager Lengel sees the girls and reprimands them. Sammy tries to defend the girls and quits his job, hoping the girls will notice his heroism. But the girls leave as soon as they get out of the store and Sammy is left to wonder his fate. By looking at the context of this text, particularly the societal conditions when this essay was written, we see that A&P is actually a critique of the norms and social expectations of the time.
Reviews of A&P regard the essay differently. For example, William ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Peden", "given" : "William", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "1964" ] ] }, "publisher" : "Houghton Mifflin", "publisher-place" : "Boston", "title" : "The American short story: Front line in the national defense of literature", "type" : "book" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=201320f4-6c0d-4b73-ac9a-8f58535b02cf" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "manualFormatting" : "Peden", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Peden)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }Peden describes it as "a deftly narrated nonsense...which contains nothing more significant than a checking clerk's interest in three girls in bathing suits", regarding A&P as merely a story with no historical or political significance. It is important to note that Peden`s review came out only two years after the essay was published in the New Yorker, a period when "many Americans believed they were standing at the dawn of a golden age" ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "URL" : "/topics/1960s", "accessed" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2013", "3", "9" ] ] }, "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "History.com", "given" : "", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "container-title" : "A&E Television Networks, LLC", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2013" ] ] }, "title" : "The 1960s", "type" : "webpage" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=d2ab20cf-83b5-45d0-be1a-daaca048c58b" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(History.com)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }(History.com). Many were eager to preserve the social order, and would never understand the need for people like Sammy to break out of norm. The American Dream, was centered on material prosperity - people worked more hours to get bigger cars, fancier homes, the fruits of prosperity - for their families ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "URL" : "/teachers/classroommaterials/lessons/american-dream/students/thedream.html", "accessed" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2013", "3", "10" ] ] }, "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Library of Congress", "given" : "", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "container-title" : "Library of Congress", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2013" ] ] }, "title" : "The American Dream", "type" : "webpage" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=346b0bf2-a76a-43c7-94d6-488600f7df35" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Library of Congress)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }(Library of Congress). Working people did not quit their jobs, instead, they held on to it because life was difficult for the less fortunate. Because of his actions and this line: "I say ‘I quit` to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they'll stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero" ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "URL" : "/archive/1961/07/22/1961_07_22_022_TNY_CARDS_000271363", "accessed" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2013", "3", "10" ] ] }, "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Dike", "given" : "John", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "container-title" : "The New Yorker", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "1961" ] ] }, "page" : "22", "title" : "A&P", "type" : "webpage" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=4cc877b9-fac7-455b-be44-cd2255f50bef" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Dike)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }(Dike) Sammy is seen as a social climber because he wanted to gain favor from the three girls who were obviously from well-off families. But then, this one statement was used to depict a normal teenager - one wanting to get attention and recognition; it is not the entirety of the story, in fact, it cannot even be used as a representation of the story. Other lines like, "my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter" ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "URL" : "/archive/1961/07/22/1961_07_22_022_TNY_CARDS_000271363", "accessed" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2013", "3", "10" ] ] }, "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Dike", "given" : "John", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-n...