John Updike’s short story “A & P” examines the consequences of internal decisions through the first-person narration of his protagonist, Sammy. However, if Updike narrated his story through the character Queenie, readers’ understanding of his characters and central idea would change. Instead of being stand by your beliefs to help others, the central idea might be trying to get across if he used a first person view through Queenie would be something down the line of not letting yourself get too high and mighty. If Updike’s “A & P” was put into a first person point of view from Queenie’s eyes, the readers would begin to think of other characters different compared to Sammy’s first person point of view, this affects the central idea: you should
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Instead of viewing Sammy’s fascination of Queenie as simple teenager behavior, readers might consider him a stalker, not a sweet guy trying to do the right thing “so there was nothing much to do except lean on the register and wait for the girls to show up again.”(Updike 351) The readers view of Queenie’s friends would change, from the eyes of Sammy they are both not very attractive women that don’t seem to have much going for them; however, the readers would definitely hear a different opinion from Queenie, of friends that always stand by your side no matter what happens. The most important character the readers might have a different understanding for is Queenie, in Sammy’s eyes she is confident and the “Queen”, but still needed a man to stick to his morals, she would not have been used for the reason Updike intended if she was the narrator. (Updike 348) The understanding of her might change into the thoughts that she might be an over privileged brat, this can be seen in the way Sammy describes how she presents herself, “She didn't look around, not this queen, she just walked straight on slowly...” (Updike 349) However, she could also be seen as a caring daughter for taking time out of her day to go get her mother snacks. Updike’s central idea would be viewed different, because queenie didn’t walk into the store because of morals, shown by Lengel,a man keeping his morals, “After this come in
Instead of viewing Sammy’s fascination of Queenie as simple teenager behavior, readers might consider him a stalker, not a sweet guy trying to do the right thing “so there was nothing much to do except lean on the register and wait for the girls to show up again.”(Updike 351) The readers view of Queenie’s friends would change, from the eyes of Sammy they are both not very attractive women that don’t seem to have much going for them; however, the readers would definitely hear a different opinion from Queenie, of friends that always stand by your side no matter what happens. The most important character the readers might have a different understanding for is Queenie, in Sammy’s eyes she is confident and the “Queen”, but still needed a man to stick to his morals, she would not have been used for the reason Updike intended if she was the narrator. (Updike 348) The understanding of her might change into the thoughts that she might be an over privileged brat, this can be seen in the way Sammy describes how she presents herself, “She didn't look around, not this queen, she just walked straight on slowly...” (Updike 349) However, she could also be seen as a caring daughter for taking time out of her day to go get her mother snacks. Updike’s central idea would be viewed different, because queenie didn’t walk into the store because of morals, shown by Lengel,a man keeping his morals, “After this come in