ENGL 1020: English Composition II, Dr. McDonald

By Jay Lawrence Dessner
Analyzes John Updike's 'A & P.' Theme of the story; Narrative techniques; Characters; Imagery and structural design.

By Jennie Stearns, et al
In this article, we examine John Updike's short story "A&P" and its depiction of the grocery store as a curricular space re/presenting consumption and resistance to it. We position Updike's fictional A&P as space where the "big curriculum" (Schubert, 2006a) of consumption is enacted in everyday life and explore both how the curriculum of consumption works and how resistance to consumerism might operate. We argue that this story provides insight into how consumption works as educational practice—one that teaches us how to be consumers, how to operate within consumer capitalism, and how to accept consumerism as natural—and also raises more specific questions about consumptive resistance by pointing toward the ways in which our particular positions within cultural narratives determine our individual perceptions of consumption-focused counterhegemonic action. Through an analysis of the fictional A& P in Updike's story, we examine how physical spaces of consumption such as grocery stores embody particular consumer-capitalist ideologies and how shoppers are socialized into behaving in particular ways in such stores.

An essay is presented on a short story "Barn Burning" by William Faulkner, an American author. It outlines the character of Colonel Satoris, a psyche child, who shows the emotional struggle and a conflict between aristocracy. It explores the narrative presentation of the story depicting the nature of evil. An overview of the story is given.

An essay on the heavy burden of personal struggle in the fictional work "Barn Burning," by William Faulkner is presented. It offers a review of the grave situation being faced by an individual through the allusion of events in the Bible and examines the metaphorical implication of psychological burden and physical weight in the trial scene. The author relates how the pull of blood is overcome by another bloodline that can influence change in a decision as to inner conflict.

The Flight of the Unholy Family in Faulkner's "Barn Burning" by Patrick Dooley, United States Air Force Academy