A & P John Updike Analysis

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Brenden Summerhill Honors English 11 Period 6A Mrs. Jacobs 16 December 2015 Feminism in Updike’s A&P Feminist criticism is able to be applied to John Updike’s “A&P” because of the demeaning and derogatory language used to describe and talk to the female characters in the short story. The problems many women faced during the times of male - dominated societies were simple, everyday things that women wanted and earned the right to do. In Updike’s “A&P,” the language used in the dialogue and thoughts of the characters tells of the times that women had very few rights to do or own anything. The language used in “A&P” allowed the ideas of a patriarchal society to surface, which soon brought about thoughts of feminism. As Kristoff…show more content…
Schneir also stated that feminists from other countries watched the American feminist movements and tried to start a movement in their own country. Some of the women even traveled to the United States to attend meetings and talk to the leaders of the American movements”(Schneir XIII). Many influential people such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony have helped feminism evolve into what it is today, a battle for equality to men. In history, there have been three main waves of feminist movements in the world. One of the movements took place in the late 1800’s, which was mainly about women having the right to vote and having the right to an education. The next movement took place in the 1960’s, which was mainly involving workplace inequality and unequal pay to men. The final wave, which involves furthering rights and equality to an even higher level, started in the 1990’s and is still currently in motion. “A&P” was written by John Updike in 1961 during one of the main waves of…show more content…
As Kristoff states, Sammy refers to the prettiest of the girls as the Queen and refers to the other two girls as Tall Goony - Goony and the plump one in plaid (Kristoff). Sammy’s names for the girls can clearly be seen as offensive by women as he is categorizing the girls by what they look like. Sammy does not know any of the girls at all and he names them and continues to call the girls these names up until he quits and tries to find them outside of the store. Even outside of the language Sammy used for describing the girls, Sammy takes it one step further and names the girls on nothing but their physical

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