Updike’s A & P analysis

Updike’s A & P analysis

  • Submitted By: muthemba
  • Date Submitted: 09/27/2014 11:19 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 1006
  • Page: 5









Updike’s A & P analysis
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Updike’s A & P analysis

This narrative is very important and clear indicator of the seismic societal social cataclysm of the 1960s. It focuses on the theme surrounding decency in the form of women and their dressing patterns. Back in the 1960s, women were expected to dress up in dresses that were not revealing any part of their bodies especially their legs not shoulders to the general public. The only exception was as described at the beach (Hakim, 1995). Otherwise women were restricted to the so called “uptight” buttoned-up dress styles currently called the older generation fashion.
The ultimate mark of the 1960s generational conflict was the shear contrast between the long-haired, carefree youths and their rather traditional parents in closed up suits and dresses. At the time, what the three girls in their bathing suits was considered inappropriate and indecent. The girls’ immodesty dressing while at the A&P store with their revealing bath suits became a portent for many open rows on public decency that ensued in the following decades.
The store attendant “Sammy” is already on the side supporting the forward thinking and acting represented by the girls through the “indecent” dressing in bath suits while in a public facility. He therefore stands among the few at that time who advocated for the freedom of the people to do things their way. And it’s through the action of such individuals that a number of things got to change of time to a presently much liberalized societal norms.
Although the society is presently very liberalized especially with respect to the clothing and the form of dress that people where in public, there are still reservations as to what an individual would really adorn in public facilities such as supermarkets and restaurants. Women presently dress in fashionable dresses that reveal a very big percentage of their bodies such as thighs,...

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