A&P--A Feminist Criticism

If anything about an author can be assumed from their writing, I would most likely dub John Updike as a misogynist, who viewed woman purely for his own purposes, and as lesser creatures, and I wouldn't be the only one to say so. Upon his death The Washington Post, in their memorial article dedicated to him, mentions that, "Updike was called a misogynist, a racist and an apologist for the establishment. On purely literary grounds, he was attacked by Norman Mailer as the kind of author appreciated by readers who knew nothing about writing...", and the Guardian came out with an article that quickly stated the commentator's intent, "Updike's women: Was John Updike really a misogynist? On the evidence of the women in his fiction, yes".

Within the first paragraph alone, the sexist nature of this piece begins to unfold,   

“In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I’m in the third checkout slot, with my back to the door, so I don’t see them until they’re over by the bread. The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two –piece. She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet braod soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs.”

Updike has already begun to describe these girls’ physical looks, because Oh my goodness! Half nekkid girls! Look! He then follows with a direct comparison to an older woman, who is pressing his patience,

"I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not. I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell. She’s one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day to trip me up. She’d been watching cash registers forty years and probably never seen a mistake before."

Yes, young man behind the register, let’s whine about the woman who expects you to do your job without ogling at the girls, most likely, several years younger than you. She’s the villain in your story right? And let’s sum up her nature purely based on her looks and impatience for your lack of attention. That is the way to be a good worker.

Let’s also check the tally so far of women that the narrator has denigrated thus far into the piece; we have two, the girl who is “chunky” (but has a nice can, so that must make up for it, right?), and this older woman who is expecting the kid to…I don’t know…actually work. Thus far as well, not one woman has had a speaking line, but don’t get too excited or hope that this will somehow pass the Bechdel Test because there are only three lines of women speaking in this entire piece.

Later in the story the narrator says the following,

“…here was this chunky one, with the two-piece — it was bright green and the seams on the bra were still sharp and her belly was still pretty pale so I guessed she just got it (the suit) — there was this one, with one of those chubby berry-faces, the lips all bunched together under her nose, this one, and a tall one, with black hair that hadn’t quite frizzed right, and one of these sunburns right across under the eyes, and a chin that was too long — you know, the kind of girl other girls think is very “striking” and “attractive” but never quite makes it, as they very well know, which is why they like her so much — and then the third one, that wasn’t quite so tall. She was the queen.

All three of these girls are ranked in a social hierarchy by the narrator, before any of them even speak. To compound the narrator’s judgmental attitude, the rankings are solely based on the girls’ appearances. In this section as well, the narrator is also somehow able to tell the entire order and details of these girls looks based solely off of their looks, creating them into mere sexual objects, than girls with actual personalities and lives. In this paragraph alone, Updike summarizes the entire gender-based cliché, where all a girl wants is to be pretty and popular. Good job rehashing diminutive stereotypes little A&P bagger.

He then continues his judgments of the women’s characters by mentioning, “A few house-slaves in pin curlers” and women with their “varicose veins” and “six children”, because in his eyes, you have worth as a woman if you are pretty. If you aren’t pretty you are one of the “sheep” he constantly feels the need to refer to.

Even by the halfway point of the story, not one female character has spoken. Actually, none of them even have a name…or a real personality. But don’t fret dear reader! The three lines of dialogue are about to come upon us!

“Lengel comes in from haggling with a truck full of cabbages on the lot and is about to scuttle into that door marked MANAGER behind which he hides all day when the girls touch his eye. Lengel’s pretty dreary, teaches Sunday school and the rest, but he doesn’t miss that much. He comes over and says, “Girls, this isn’t the beach.”

Queenie blushes, though maybe it’s just a brush of sunburn I was noticing for the first time, now that she was so close. “My mother asked me to pick up a jar of herring snacks.” Her voice kind of startled me, the way voices do when you see the people first, coming out so flat and dumb yet kind of tony, too, the way it ticked over “pick up” and “snacks.”

Oh! Look! Here we have at least our third male character, with a past, and a speaking role! But let’s not overshadow the young girl who has FINALLY spoken. As soon as she speaks, the narrator dislikes her too! He calls her voice “flat and tone, yet kind of tony”, proving yet again, the narrator derives his worth of women purely from their bodies.

“The girls, and who'd blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say "I quit" to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they'll stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero. They keep right on going, into the electric eye; the door flies open and they flicker across the lot to their car, Queenie and Plaid and Big Tall Goony-Goony (not that as raw material she was so bad), leaving me with Lengel and a kink in his eyebrow…

     

I look around for my girls, but they're gone, of course….my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter”

With only several paragraphs left, you’d think the narrator would calm his misogynist self. You would think he could have seen the potential symbolism in his action to quit. He just left a job where the boss also based his entire view of people on what they wore, but no, because the girls did not flock him with pride and gratitude, because they did not respond…HIS girls (because he does possess those girls)…he is left feeling regretful and wondering how tough his life was about to become because he stood up for someone.