Journaling on John Updike’s A&P
Lisa Napell Dicksteen
EGL 204
Queenie intrigues me. She serves several purposes in the story, including being the fulcrum on which all the action is balanced. If she were not discovering the power of her new curves, she would not have initiated the parade of pulchritude through the small town A&P that is the set up for the story. If she were not flouncing through the aisles, Sam and his fellow cashier would not be mesmerized by her, and the manager would not feel compelled to ask her to cover up. Had she not turned up on his shift, Sam would still be a bored supermarket checkout clerk, and Updike would have no story.
Yet Queenie, as Sam nicknames her for her regal bearing and obvious position as the leader of the pack, is more than just a plot device. Even though the story is told from the point of view of the decidedly not omniscient Sam, Updike gives us her actions as representative of her thoughts, and his narrative as illustrative of her intentions and their unintended consequences. Although she speaks only a few lines, and those at the very end of the story, we know a lot about her.
From the first time he describes her, Updike uses Sammy to give us clues about her relationships. “…she had talked the other two into coming in here with her, and now she was showing them how to do it, walk slow and hold yourself straight” (90). This is a girl who is invested in how she looks, and in what the way she looks can do for her. It’s clear that she has practiced this walk before; just as it is clear that her ladies-in-waiting have not. We see this as Sammy describes her walking “straight on slowly” (90) “putting down her heels and then letting the weight move along to her toes as if she was testing the floor with every step, putting a little deliberate extra action into it” (90). This is something she has practiced at home in the mirror for hours, perhaps modeling her posture or walk on this or that starlet of the day.
Her entourage, however, has just been roped into this and shows signs of regretting their decision. They are unrehearsed, and a little bit different than Queenie in their psychological/emotional development. They are not sufficiently confident in their emerging womanliness to really strut their stuff properly. As a result, they appear as baby swans, all molting feathers and awkward feet, following their mother, “peeking around [from behind her] and making their shoulders round” (90).
The next clue we receive about Queenie’s attitude comes when Sammy becomes convinced that she knows he and the other cashier are watching her, “but she didn’t tip. Not this Queen” (90). Updike then has Queenie perform a little turn-and-hold-and-turn-and-walk for the benefit of her audience. But he doesn’t have her directly acknowledge their presence. Not a nod, or a smile, or a glance in their direction. She knows she is the center of their little universe at the moment and that any overt glance in their direction would reveal her as greedy for their gaze; just the opposite of the impression she is striving to make.
We also know that Queenie has been practicing her facial expression. Sammy describes it as rather prim, and then, without being aware that he is looking beyond the surface for a moment thinks to himself, “Walking into the A&P [in only a bathing suit] with your straps down, I suppose it’s the only kind of a face you can have” (90, italics the author’s). Later, when she has traversed all the attended aisles and even made conversation with the deli counterman, she reaches his cash register, “still with the prim look” (92). She has spent many hours gazing at her face in the mirror in the privacy of her bedroom, trying out different looks of cool indifference. This is the one she has chosen for today, and she is determined to maintain it. This is what a “high-class lady” looks like, in her imagination.
And this is the way a “lady” deals with the lower classes and greedy-eyed boys who work in places like the A&P.
Except she is not a lady yet. She is a girl trying lady-ness on like a costume, so, when the store manager approaches her little clique at Sammy’s register and politely reminds them that they are not dressed for supermarket shopping, she begins to revert to her true age. At the first reprimand, Sammy notices she’s blushing. After Lengel repeats his gentle scolding, Sammy notices Queenie’s body betraying her. “Queenie’s blush is no sunburn now” (92).
Having been thus exposed, Queenie is angry. She begins to pout, “her lower lip pushing” (92), and she begins to become more irate. Then Updike raised the issue of class again. Sammy imagines Queenie, in her fury, “remember[ing] her place, a place from which the crowd that runs the A&P must look pretty crummy” (92). But she is not feeling superior. As much as she is trying not to, she is feeling embarrassed, as evidenced by her quick exit from the aisle, the store, the parking lot, and Sammy’s life.
Updike has given us a very clear snapshot of a moment in the maturation of a young, upper middle class girl in a small town as she tries her wings, pushing against the cultural norms and testing the power of her femininity. If we try to see into her future, we can imagine her becoming more and more acculturated to her body and its effect on the people around her. We can picture her perfecting that glacial gaze, that sophisticated walk, that high-toned look she is trying on today. What happens to her then is the stuff of another story for another day.