A&P-John Updike: Life Is Not A Game-Theme
...he central image of Sammy’s idea that life is just a game and how Updike’s reiteration of words (like the incessant clanging of a pinball machine) depicts Sammy’s perception of life. Throughout the passage, Updike’s character Sammy leaves the readers with the impression that the A&P is like a game to him. He describes his job as a game, with the inside of the store expressed as a pinball machine. The first reference to this theme occurs when Sammy presents the girls’ journey through the store like tunnels in a pinball machine instead of grocery store aisles. The image of the light bulb aisle creates the idea of flashing lights in the pinball game. The “Slots Three through Seven” is symbolic of pinball slots which the ball travels through just as the girls pick the aisle they want to go through. Also, as a surprise to Sammy, the money Queenie will use pops out from her bathing suit top, is similar to a pin ball popping out of nowhere and surprising its players. The game motif that is used in this passage is also reflected not only in the theme of the passage but also in the repetition of the word luck. In Sammy’s mind, his job is a game and life is a game with winners and losers. To Sammy, it’s all about “luck”. When the girls were coming up to his lane, he comments silently “…but Stokesie with his usual luck draws an old party in baggy grey sweatpants…” which shows that Sammy thinks that the other employees, not just Sammy, are players in the “game” and Stokesie has lost. Sammy believes he has w...