“A&P”
This blog is supposed to be a tool for me to vocalize my literary thoughts. Okay. Forgive me if some of my thoughts are ridiculous or over-the-top or insignificant. When I think about A&P, I imagine this great mythical battle, covering some chaotic ethereal plain. The plain is engulfed in rage as orthodox conventionalists smash against non-conformists in furious struggle. It may sound mock heroic or somewhat melodramatic but I think this image in my head sincerely compliments the effectiveness of the story and the writing abilities of John Updike. To instill the image of this epic struggle between conformity and non-conformity in my head through the description of some girls’ entering a supermarket is an amazing accomplishment. I am predisposed to imagine such glorious battle but the description that Updike offers throughout the narrative inspires such a contrast between the forces of the usual and the unique—as well as their respective generals and champions—that the archetypal image of the battle between good and evil must be conjured in the back of every reader’s mind.
To go further, A&P resembles many of our most sacred archetypes and themes in several specific ways. First, we have the girls’ challenge to authority in the form of their entering the store scantily clad and their confrontation—even if it did not amount to fight, physical or metaphorical, in any way—with Mr. Lengel, the general, if you will, of the conformist legions. Although it is not a well-defined archetype, the challenge to authority is central to many of our classic story formats. Challenging authority is a world-wide theme that has been a part of American culture forever—or as long as we have existed, which is not very long actually.
The girls also contribute to another beloved archetype of our literary age. They--actually she, as only one of the girls attracts his full attention--inspire Sammy to champion the cause of non-conformity. They become the “maidens in distress” that ultimately cause Sammy to don his shining armor and rescue the fair Queenie and her companions from the wrath of Mr. Lengel and his hoards of obedient sheep. Sammy, our knight in shining armor, and Queenie, the fair maiden to which he devotes his glorious feat of bravery, fulfill another classic archetype of our culture.
To complement the girls’ challenge to authority, we see them starting a sort of revolution or rebellion in the store. You guessed it. Another archetype. The girls, and Queenie in particular, cause a wave of sensation to overcome several characters in the story. Only one quits, but this still constitutes a social rebellion of sorts against the tyranny of the A&P autocrat and his followers. Okay, it’s no Les Miserables but it still lives up to the revolution archetype that is central to much great literature, art and history.
To imagine a Thermopoly-like battle between conformity and it’s counterpart—the girls and Sammy being the Spartans, hopelessly outnumbered by the vast legions of Persian sheep—may be ridiculous or unnecessary, but the story does fit several classic literary archetypes that have spanned literary history back to the Homeric epics of history.
Flannery O’ Connor Stories
I don’t have a particular literary aspect of Flannery O’Connor stories in mind. What struck me about “Revelation” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is more of an overarching theme that applies to both of the stories. In both stories, God acts through human beings, not through impressive ecclesiastical miracles or acts of awe. In both stories, God’s grace is transferred into human beings—Mary Grace and the grandmother—and then used to affect others through human interactions—the ultimate recipients of these actions being Mrs. Turpin and the Misfit. The recipients of each story react differently but in both cases it is human action that attempts to change them. Perhaps O’Connor uses this human interaction to reject the biblical notion of heavenly intervention and to instead substitute the idea that human beings are responsible for improving the world through the inspiration offered by God. The one event that may be interpreted as a heavenly action is the revelation and the ghostly processional observed by Mrs. Turpin; however, it is not conclusively stated that the processional is the work of God and not the conscious or subconscious of Mrs. Turpin. (715)
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1 comment:
Gary, I actually like the fact that you use the format of the blog to let your thoughts take you where they want to go. Sometimes letting yourself think of something in an exaggerated form is a useful way to get to the bottom of what you're thinking and to help you clarify ideas. And as long as you take it with a grain of salt, as you do here, and know that you're giving something a weight it can't quite carry, it helps you see larger patterns and bigger scale ideas. So, go for it.
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