1984 by George Orwell, uses betrayal as a method of promoting feelings of alienation and loneliness. “These three girls come in wearing nothing but bathing suits (Updike 430).” The incipit of the story written by John Updike, entitled 'A&P', immediately creates a sense of bewilderment. The setting that the author uses as a backdrop is very essential to the story and helps to understand the main character's decision to quit his job at the end. The protagonist and main character is Sammy, an employee of A&P. Sammy not only abandons his job, but he also chooses to leave the A&P and what the store represents in the story. John Updike's "A&P" uses the setting of the story to create a feeling of limitation. The time period of the story influences the setting of A&P. The story takes place in a time when a town had only one grocery store and all the locals knew each other. Updike provides details and clues that the story takes place around the early 1960s. Inside the A&P, there was an aisle that contained "discount Caribbean Six records or Tony Martin Sings or some shit like that that makes you wonder they waste wax on..." (Updike 433). Tony Martin was an American pop singer who had a successful recording career. The height of Martin's popularity was during the mid-1950s ("Martin, Tony"). Since the records were discounted and described as rubbish, this suggests that A&P was still clinging to old ideals and was reluctant to move forward. This paints a picture of an old fashioned era and grocery store. Since the story takes place in a grocery store in a seemingly quiet small town, the setting of the A&P plays a significant role in the story. The setting of the story represented uniformity in… middle of the paper… is very essential for the reader as the title of the story is the setting, “A&P”. The setting of A&P gives the reader the feeling that he is the antagonist of the story. Although Sammy is the main character of the story, Updike seems to put as much time and effort into describing the setting of the story as he does into the characters. The girls in the bathing suits represented a sense of freedom in contrast to the A&P setting, which was a feeling of confinement. Once Sammy quits his job and leaves the A&P, he is no longer limited by his environment. Sammy then breaks free from A&P's rigid mentality. Works cited "Martin, Tony". Encyclopedia Britannica (2013): Search Starter. Network. April 8, 2014. Update, John. "A&P." Mays, Kelly J. The Norton Introduction to Literature. Portable 11th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2014. 429-435. Press.