John Updike’s short story “A&P” takes place entirely within one of the most universally recognized structures across the length and breadth of the American landscape. As a thematic device, the grocery store acts an institution that filled with symbolism related to capitalism as an economic system dependent on marketing empty promises to those seeking to identify themselves through the commodities they buy in a vain attempt to attain status. The title indicates that the supermarket will become a symbol of how Americans at all levels of society seek to buy status and happiness.
The geographical location of the A&P directly situates it is a symbol of status for every strata of American society by virtue of its place in the middle of the town surrounded by other symbolic institutions of American society. Within sight of the A&P is a church (religious institution), two banks (economic institutions), the newspaper (media institution) and three representatives of the ultimate symbol of status and happiness in America: real estate brokers.
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"John Updike’s short story “A&P”".
All the other buildings around the A&P unquestionably are places consumption is necessary for achieving status and happiness. They are also institutions that seek, in different ways, to strip people of their individuality and transform them into mass consumers of product. The placement of the grocery store at the center of the hub connecting these institutions works backwards as well by placing the taint of consumerism upon their relationship.
Consumerism and all the taints of its negative connotations is ultimately revealed as the theme of Updike’s story. The girls become objectified by the store employees as commodities to be judged based on their packaging. Queenie herself is objectified into little more than another symbolic acquisition representing the upwardly social mobility that creates promises of finding identity through status at the church or the best house on the real estate market.
Social mobility can be bought and sold throughout America based solely on ownership of things. The very concept that status should be attained by demonstrations of one’s character is undermined by the advertising and marketing strategies that place too great an emphasis on the outward packaging of those items deemed worthy of endowing status and happiness.
