A Feminist Perspective of John Updikes A&P :: A&P Essays

A Feminist Perspective of Updikes A&P   Two Works Cited    John Updikes story, A&P, starts off In walks three girls in nothing but bathing suits, and that pretty much sums it all up (Updike 1026). In the story, not only are the girls in bathing suits looked upon as sex objects, but other women are negatively viewed as witches, farm animals, or slaves. This story is round how a young man in the early 1960s viewed women as a whole, including his own mother. At the beginning of the story Sammy complains about an older woman, a fifty-year-old witch with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, who is waiting to check out her groceries. She gets annoyed with Sammy because he is too busy drooling over the young flesh which has only if walked in the door (Updike 1026). The first half-naked girl who walks into the A&P and catches Sammys eye is a chunky girl with a two-piece tartan bathing suit on that showed off her sweet broad soft-looking can (Updike l026) . As if staring at this girls backside wasnt enough, Sammy similarly noticed those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit (Updike 1026). How would this girl feel if she knew just how intensely this guy was scoping her out? Or better yet, how would you feel if someones eyes were glued to your backside when you were grocery shopping? That behavior, no matter what she was wearing, is totally unacceptable especially in a grocery store. Is Sammy at fault for not having any self control? It might be acceptable for this nineteen-year-old guy to check out a girl in her bathing suit however, that would not have excused old McMahon, the deli guy, who patted his mouth and sized up their joints as the girls walked away from the recurrence (Updike 1027). Goony-Goony, the next victim of Sammys intentional harassment, was presented in the story as a rather tall girl with black hair that hadnt sort of frizzed right for Sammys taste (Updike 1026). He found some rea son not to be interested in this girl, probably because he was intimidated by her height. Obviously, perfection was not something he saw in anyone, except maybe the girl he referred to as Queenie, who Sammy says, has the nicest two scoops of vanilla breasts he has ever seen (Updike 1028).