In John Updike’s “A&P,” plot, setting, and characterization are utilized to give more meaning to the story. Characterization is the distinctive nature or features of a certain character, and it is also the analyzing of the changes a character undergoes throughout a given story. Sammy, the round character in the story, undergoes change in the story as he transforms from an apathetic employee just going through the motions of his job each day into a more dignified person as he stands up for the girls in the story against his boss and then goes on to quit his job, knowing that tough consequences may ensue. This dramatic change that occurs in the story also makes Sammy a dynamic character since he changes from being a submissive employee into being a more dominant person by the end of the story as he stands up against his boss. Another important element to give more meaning to a story is setting which is just simply the time and place a story occurs. This story is set inside of an A & P grocery store somewhere in a small New England town, but more importantly is the fact that the story is set during the summertime. None of the conflict would have occurred under any other weather condition, since it was the girl’s clothing that set off all of the conflict of the story in the first place. Since the setting of the story is so important to the actions presented throughout, the setting is therefore seen as an integral setting since the actions of the story rely so heavily on the character’s surrounding. Plot, which is the specific order of events in a story, is yet another element in fiction that helps in giving more meaning to a story. The plot of the story is portrayed through rising action since the reader gets a sense of something big to happen by the end of the story since Updike builds the tension as Sammy is watching the girl’s in bathing suits walk around the store. The usual customers of the store seem to be appalled by the attire of the girl’s and by...