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Give me essay about in the post-war era of the 1950s, the American economy was thriving and as people became highly educated coupled with a growing sense of cultural history, shopping became a daily trend, and consumerism took the center stage. In the story, Updike describes A&P's customers, specifically the girls, as "sheep pushing their carts down the aisle" (240). In other words, the customers are docile without the capacity to think independent of what corporate America has
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#A Cultural Analysis of John Updike’s A&P Essay
John Updike’s chef-d’oeuvre story, A&P, highlights consumerism and its dehumanizing impacts as some of the cultural issues that America was experiencing in the 1960s. The story is populated with brand names, which could be confusing at first, but a closer look reveals what Updike is trying to achieve – to reflect the growing trend in America at the time whereby people’s identity is based not on their social interactions and other personal attributes, but by what one can purchase and consume. This paper focuses on the issue of consumerism as a cultural issue presented in the story A&P.
During the post-war era of the 1950s, the American economy was thriving and as people became highly educated coupled with a growing sense of cultural history, shopping became a daily trend, and consumerism took the center stage. In the story, Updike describes A&P’s customers, specifically the girls, as “sheep pushing their carts down the aisle” (240). In other words, the customers are docile without the capacity to think independent of what corporate America has told them – that they need more goods for their lives to become better. In Updike’s eyes, the consumers are “scared pigs in a chute” (242), which is dehumanizing. The rising consumerism at the time had robbed people of the ability to reason out and realize that their lives were more than the goods that they could purchase and consume. The protagonist in the story comments, “I bet you could set off dynamite in an A&P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists” (Updike 240). In this sentence, Updike attempts to highlight how consumerism has turned normal people into zombie-like creatures devoid of the capacity to be aware of their milieu.
Given that people do not necessarily need the goods they are buying, corporations have become creative to ensure that consumers are persuaded to spend their money on things they do not require. Therefore, inside the supermarket, everything can be found including the “cat-and-dog-food-breakfast-cereal-macaroni-rice raisins-seasonings-spreads-spaghetti-soft-drinks-crackers-and-cookies aisle” (Updike 240). As such, advertising shifts from directing individuals from what they want to convince them to desire whatever is up for sale. This form of aggressive marketing is seen throughout the story. For instance, herring snacks are not just herring snacks but “Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream” (Updike 241). In the quest to promote consumerism, it is not enough to give consumers plain herring snacks – they have to be “fancy” and not just in sour cream, but “pure” sour cream. With the proliferation of goods and unprecedented growth of the economy after the war, the markets were becoming competitive and thus corporates had to resort to these tricks to remain afloat. Consequently, the only way to achieve this goal was to ensure that consumers bought more goods than they needed just for the sake of accumulating useless stuff through endless shopping in places like A&P – a one-stop shop.
The message of consumerism stands out clearly in John Updike’s story, A&P. Right from the beginning, the author strives to present a culture of incessant shopping with consumers buying goods that they do not need thanks to corporate America, which has adopted aggressive marketing as companies seek to remain ahead of the competition. Updike notes that shoppers have become like animals – sheep and pigs, without the capacity to think for themselves. Ultimately, consumerism was ruining people’s lives in post-war America and Updike tackles this cultural issue satirically throughout the story.