Today we prepared and wrote a short composition on Updike's story.
In the short story, "A & P" by John Updike, explain how Updike prepares the reader for the narrator's impulsive resignation. Refer to such devices as unique detail, motif, diction, point of view and syntax.
Use synonyms for resignation such as departure, exit, withdrawal, leaving, quitting.
Include the following words in your response: colloquial, compliance or compliant, acquiescence or acquiesce, reconcile or reconciliation, tenacious, stalwart, unwavering, immune.
Step 1: Work the prompt.
Internalize the question so you know exactly why you are writing. Know why you are choosing the evidence. Know what you want to say about the evidence. Know how it answers the question. Circle key words in the question. Think of synonyms for the key words you'll need to use so that the style is not repetitious.
Step 2: Find the best devices.
Example
The title: A & P --sense of seaparation, A and P are not close letters in the alphabet,
The setting: aisles, order, sheep (customers) bestial imagery, conservative rules, unspoken expectations, it is in the middle of town, the townsfolk don't go to the beach,
motif: Queen, sun, beach, warmth, golden -- a world he imagines, delights in, far from his experience,
inner/outer worlds of the narrator: real vs imaginary
syntax: sentence fragments, colloquial, grammatically incorrect at times, other times the prose flows in long, complicated sentences to demonstrate the two worlds
imagery: the narrator and later the manager has his back to the door (turned away from the outside world, no expectations for other experiences, stick to what you know, stay in line, wait to be promoted
Step 3: Create a strong thesis which answers the question and states which devices you will use and why.
Sample thesis / introduction to a short composition:
In John Updike's story, "A & P," the narrator's impulsive resignation dramatizes the union needed to reconcile the inner and outer worlds of this grocery-clerk narrator who is stuck in a conservative, acquiescent environment. The reader is prepared for this event through the use of setting, motif, and imagery which suggestively contrast freedom to compliance.
Sample thesis / introduction to a short composition:
In John Updike's story, "A & P," the narrator's impulsive resignation dramatizes the union needed to reconcile the inner and outer worlds of this grocery-clerk narrator who is stuck in a conservative, acquiescent environment. The reader is prepared for this event through the use of setting, motif, and imagery which suggestively contrast freedom to compliance.
Step 4: Write the composition. Focus on answering the question, of course, and supply ample examples (short quotations are best) and also focus on your own writing style: vocabulary needs to be exact, sentence variety (vary your types, your beginnings, your lengths) and use subordinate clauses: after, whenever, although, as, because, before, even it, even though, if, in order that, once, provided that, rather than, since, so that, than , that, though, unless, until, where, whereas, whenever, whether, while, why . . .
Sample Student Essay based on a short passage of prose by Alice Walker.
Question 1
The Flowers
by Mitch Cram
Alice Walker’s short story, “The Flowers,” explores the loss of
innocence through a young girl’s childlike reverie, interrupted by
her discovery of the victim of a lynching. Walker’s use of vibrant
colour and nature imagery enforces the pastoral idealizations of a
child’s mind while the author prepares the reader for the fall with
subtle references to natural phenomena outside the child’s grasp.
The first section
of the story focuses on the sensory aspects of Myop’s afternoon.
The concise diction and abstract expression evoke a child’s
consciousness, similar to Joyce, and concentrates on the motif of the
sun as a “golden surprise”. Myop—itself an almost onomatopoeic
name, like a child’s pet sound—“[skips] lightly from her house
to ....house” ; lightness and warmth define childhood. Similarly,
“corn and cotton peanuts and squash are golden in colour and
coalesce with the goodness and lightness Myop associates with the
coming sun. For Myop, “nothing excited her but her song,” but
even the next paragraph, opening with Myop “turning her back on the
rusty boards” signifies an ignorance, or deliberate exclusion of
less than ideal elements. The reader sense Myop’s naivety.
The next section further explores
nature imagery; however, now “late autumn” and “fallen leaves”
express a falling action closely associated with the loss of
innocence epitomized by the dead man. Even Myop senses the change in
tone as “the strangeness of the land made it not as pleasant as her
usual haunts,” intimating Myop’s fear of the unknown. The change
in time, too, heralds a change: now noon, the expression of the
narrator is greatly expanded; however, still limited. While earlier
in the paragraph, the young girl delighted in discovering the new
“strange blue flowers” the distinctly dark atmosphere of “the
little cove in which she found herself” intimates isolation and
perhaps even self-awareness—the phrase “found herself”
emphasizes that interpretation. The “vague” fear of
snakes—themselves symbols of temptation, sin as downfall—transforms
into a visceral awareness of the damp, deep silence of the cove.
The actual discovery of the corpse is
a surprise to the reader, simply when Myop seeks to return “to the
peacefulness of the morning’; however, time advances intentionally
and the reader understands that Myop cannot travel back to innocence.
The literal nature of the line “she stepped smack into his eyes”
is not appreciated until it is revealed that Myop has encountered a
disembodied heart; until then the line is interprets symbolically to
represent judgement, voyeurism—all elements of maturity and
corruption. However, the literal corruption exists in the corpse’s
decay; ....as broken white teeth, rotted clothes and the noose.
Walker’s symbolism of the pink rose again emphasizes rot, as event
the rebirth of nature veils the remains of the broken noose. Myop’s
childlike inquisitiveness leads the young girl to realize a more
complex relationship between nature, life and death.
Through symbolism and slowly mellowing
nature imagery, Walker prepares the reader for the sudden and
shocking manifestation of growing up.
