M. Gilbert Porter called the titular A&P in Updike's story "the common denominator of middle-class suburbia, an appropriate symbol for [the] mass ethic of a consumer-conditioned society". According to Porter, when the main character chooses to rebel against the A&P he also rebels against this consumer-conditioned society, and in so doing he "has chosen to live honestly and meaningfully".[6] William Peden, on the other hand, called the story "deftly narrated nonsense ... which contains nothing more significant than a checking clerk's interest in three girls in bathing suits."[7]
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