Although the John Updike short story "A & P" at
first appears to be told in the present, the whole story serves as a kind of flashback.
We know this because Sammy tells us
Now here comes the sad part of the story, at
least my family says it's sad but I don't think it's sad
myself.
Sammy narrates the
story in retrospect, since it is apparent that his family already knows about him
quitting his job, and they are "sad" about his decision. Updike's foreshadowing is
subtle. One hint comes in the "sad part of the story" quote mentioned above. The reader
can also assume that eventually something will be said about the girls' underdressed
attire, not exactly appropriate for the store that is patronized primarily by old
"cash-register-watchers" and "sheep."
You know, it's one thing to have a girl in a
bathing suit down on the beach... and another thing in the cool of the A &
P...
A final bit of
foreshadowing comes when Sammy says that "everybody's luck begins to run out." His own
jobless future is predicted in the final sentence,
when
... my
stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me
hereafter.
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