Blog Entry 2

For this week's quote response, I chose a quote from John Updike's, "A & P." 

"She came down a little hard on her heels, as if she didn't walk in her bare feet that much, putting down her heels and then letting the weight move along to her toes as if she was testing the floor with every step, putting a little deliberate extra action into it.  You never know for sure how girls' minds work (do they really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?) but you got the idea she had talked the other two into coming here with her, and now she was showing them how to do it, walk slow and hold yourself straight" (Updike, 15-16).

I chose this passage to point out the attention to detail Updike displays in his writing.  From the first paragraph of the story he sets the scene of the A & P where the character Sammy works.  Updike devoted two long sentences just to describe the way the Queenie character walked down the aisle, as if she was showing the other girls how it was done.  The wording itself may not be as important to the story but it is detail that is important.  It captivates me as the reader and makes me feel as though I am there in the A & P, which makes the story all the more interesting.  More importantly, it makes Sammy's resoning for quitting easy to understand.  It is as if he made a connection with the girls as he studied them and wanted to defend their honor to catch their eye.