Analysis of A&P by John Updike

John Updike's "A&P" is about a boy named Sammy, who lives a simple life while working in a supermarket he seems to despise. As he is following his daily routine, three girls in bathing suits enter the store. The girls affect everyone's monotonous lives, especially Sammy's. Because the girls disrupt the routines of the store, Sammy becomes aware of his life and decides to change himself.

Sammy see’s that in the group there is a leader he nicknames her queenie. “She kind of led them, the other two peeking around and making their shoulders round. She didn’t look around, not this queen” (149). Sammy recognizes that these two girls are like the people in the A&P that he wants to set himself apart from. The word queen symbolizes great stature, high rank to which others are below her. He chooses to name her this because of how she carries herself with no care about what people are looking at he.. Critic Gilbert Porter brings up a question that ties into the conformity that is expected in the A&P; “Does the attire of the girls satisfy the requirement of “decency” which the policy of the A&P demands?” The answer is no. When Sammy’s manager Lengel see’s these girls he responds by saying “We want you decently dressed when you come in here” (151). Lengel using the word we represented the unity of attitudes of all the people like Lengel that the girls are not “decently” dressed. Sammy finds it amusing but also does not agree with how Lengel treated the girls.

John Updike's story "A&P" talks about a 19-year old lad, Sammy, who has a job at the local grocery store, the A&P. Sammy works at the register in the store and is always observing the people who walk in and out each day. On this particular day that the story takes place, Sammy is caught off guard when a cluster of girls walk into the store wearing just their bathing suits. This caught Sammy's attention because the nearest beach is five miles away and he could not figure out why they would still be in their suits. Sammy continues to overlook the girls in the store throughout their endeavor to pick up some item's that they were sent in for. While they are wandering around the store Sammy watches the reactions of other customers, is yelled at

The short story “A&P” written by John Updike, is about three girls who change Sammy’s life. The three girls came from the beach and are not dressed properly to enter a grocery store called A&P. Sammy, the main character, is a check out clerk, and observes every detail about the girls. Sam even gives each of the girls a name. His favorite is “Queenie.” Sammy is obviously the type of guy who doesn’t get a lot of girls. Sam has a conflict of person vs. society. Because of his dead end job, obsession with Queenie, and his noble act to save the girls from embarrassment, Sammy has a conflict between himself and society.

The story "A&P" by John Updike, deals with Sammy facing a test in his young manhood. Dealing with being accepted by society as opposed to making mature decisions in society. Sammy sees three girls walk in the store with bikini's on and his lust takes over, yet one out of the three named Queenie he loves the most. During this era of the story setting women's rights were very strict in regards to sexism, culture, and imprisonment. Updike's writing is very transparent for readers to see behind the veil on what is really going on in society. My sociological critical theory is "A&P" shows innovative ways of Updike exposing sexism, culture, and imprisonment and how it still affects the world today.

Sammy’s, world was turned upside by the power of sex, which was another strong theme in “A&P”. The three girls certainly caused a stir in the A&P due to their appearance from

Love, disillusion, religion… every story has its own theme and its author leads the readers all the way to its understanding. The short story “A&P” is not an exception of this. Written by John Updike and published in the New Yorker in 1961, it tells the story of Sammy, a 19 years old cashier in an A&P grocery store who is amazed by the journey of three girls that enter the store dressed only in bikinis. The story is narrated by Sammy himself; therefore, the readers can almost palpate the narrator’s innermost thoughts. Since the girls were improperly dressed, Lengel, the manager of the store, rebuked them. Sammy decided to defend the girls and quit his job to catch their attention. But this immature act will have a long-term consequence for this boy. The theme of A&P is led by the significance of its setting, the use of symbolism, and the characteristics of its main character.

He is jaded with his life as a cashier and abhors the customers in the grocery store, making negative and sarcastic comments such as “sheep” and “houseslaves”. (Updike, 5) Not only does he make remarks about the customers but he also does it to his co-workers: “…he thinks he’s going to be manager some sunny day, maybe in 1990 when it’s called the Great Alexandrov and Petrooshki Tea Company or something” (Updike, 9) Sammy thinks that he can see through the actions of everyone without even getting to know most of the people, as he judges each and every person in the A&P. However, his world changes when three girls, dressed only in swimsuits, enter the A&P to purchase snacks. His description of the three girls is quite sexist, referring to one of them with "a chin that is too

John Updike’s “A&P” tells a story of young cashier’s encounter with three girls who enter the store in a manner that leads to the loss of his job. In the exposition, three girls with contrasting features make their way around the A&P and creates conflict because they are wearing nothing but bathing suits. One of the girls, who the narrator, Sammy, refers to as Queenie, has her bathing suit straps down “off her shoulders [and] looped loose around the cool tops of her arms (5).” In the rising action, their attire attracts attention from everyone in the store and, eventually, the manager address them and begins to lecture them on being “decently dressed (7)” and tells them to cover their shoulders upon their next visit. While the girls are “in a hurry to get out (7),” Sammy suddenly claims that he quits as he watches them “flicker

John Updike’s “A&P” tells the story of what starts out as a typical summer afternoon at the titular grocery store, through the eyes of 19 year old cashier, Sammy. The lazy summer afternoon at the quiet A&P is quickly thrown into a state of quiet chaos, as three bikini-clad young women stroll into the store, inevitably leading to a confrontation over their state of dress, or lack thereof, between the store manager, Lengel, and the three girls. As the confrontation plays out, Sammy begins to evaluate the state of his life and future, eventually leading to his rash decision to quit his job, right then and there.

This story takes place in a small town grocery store named A&P. It is located just north of Boston where Sammy, the protagonist, works as a cashier. The A&P sits at the center of town and from the front door, Sammy can see the bank, two real estate offices, and the Congregational Church. Sammy is a very sarcastic and opinionated young man, who is on the verge of adulthood. He is nineteen years old and has a very keen observational sense in the opposite sex. His fellow cashier, Stokesie, is twenty-two, married and has two young children. The A&P is managed by a much older man named Lengel, who is a friend of Sammy's parents. Not only is Lengel the manager and a friend of the family, he is also a Sunday school teacher and the reason why Sammy

A & P is a story of Sammy who is a 19 year old boy working as a clerk at a grocery store in a small town in New England. Published back in 1961 narrative defining A & P is the popular mythology of 1960s basically where youthful rebellion powers took over the soulless system. (Sustana) Therefore Updike has written a story that includes key elements of myth along with the background of postwar prosperity and the attendant consumer culture. Where there is a strong hint of the Cold War as hero character of the story, Sammy imagines A & P controlled by Russians in 1990. Narrative revolves around the obligatory opposition of authority and youth in the confrontation between Lengel, girls and Sammy. Story provides particular significant indicators of the 1960s seismic social upheavals in the shape of inappropriate dresses of the girls. Girls walking in revealing bathing suits depicted the immodesty around the A & P and remained a forerunner of various confrontations over public decency of the resultant decade ahead.

Sammy, the main protagonist and narrator in “A & P” written by John Updike, who was living at home with his parents; saw three girls walk into the A & P store. Sammy came to the conclusion that there is another world out there than the way he is living currently. We, as the readers, notice that Sammy is a long time employee and has been thinking about a way out for a long time. He is trying to find a way out from this trapped society he lives in.

The A&P where Sammy works represents a world where everything is simple and quiet. Each day would feel the same and the people in the store would tend to themselves and they would have to a certain set of rules that could not be broken. However, the three girls in bathing suits represent the kinds of people from a different world, a world where people are not afraid to challenge social norms. By reading how these girls carry themselves, “she [Queenie] came down a little hard on her heels [...] she was showing them how to do it, walk slow and hold yourself straight” (1) says a lot about their attitude and the world outside of the A&P. These girls are not afraid to go in a public store in nothing but their bathing suits, and once they were inside they were not shy or timid; they held their high with confidence and kept walking. Sammy too tried acting bold and courageous when he quit his job for the girls, however, “my [Sammy] stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter” (5). Sammy left his simple world in the A&P for a more unpredictable life, and he realizes how hard life is going to be, not because he is alone, but rather that he does not know how to live without rules. Towards the end of the short story, Updike was successful in depicting emotion to his readers, and with the use of

As the story progressed I found that Sammy was a little buried with his job and just did things automatically because he had been there for so long. When his boss comes in and says to the girls “girls this isn’t the beach”, because of the way they are dressed in the store and Sammy gets insulted by the girl’s embarrassment, I felt Sammy was a hypocrite, because