John Updike's A & P

In the short story “A & P,” the author, John Updike depicts a grocery store called “A & P” in a small town of North Boston, Massachusetts. The store is located on a point about four to five miles from a hot, sunny beach. Because of the hot summer weather, you are going to see bathing suits, flip flops, swimming trunks, or sunglasses. The story starts with three teenage girls that entered and stroll around the store barefooted along with their bathing suits on. The story vividly illustrates the characterization, conflicts, and imagery based on the clothing in which Updike uses to communicate the theme of the story. Updike shows the readers how Sammy was attracted to those three girls who however, were not obviously interested in him. He took no initiative to stop and think before he made his grand final decision. Likewise, his manager, Lengel watches his whole life change and unravels in seconds based on his immaturity. At the end of the story, Sammy perceives that the whole world is going to be hard on him; also reality sets in because he now has to expect

He narrated, “the girls, and who'd blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say ‘I quit’ to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they'll stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero”(4, Updike). The dramatic irony in this scene was that throughout the whole story, Sammy never mentioned that the girls noticed him because they never did—Sammy was the one-sided observer. Therefore, it was obvious that Sammy would receive no reaction from the girls, whom he failed to observe their disinterest towards him. To the audience, it was clear that the girls would continue to disregard him, let alone seeing him as their savior, nor participate in his fantasy. How Sammy failed to see the absurdity of his made-up reality was what made him naive, although he clearly wanted to establish his superiority and admirability as an adult nineteen-year-old. What’s more, he imagined himself to be the hero of “his girls,” “unsuspectedly” protecting them over the ugly, monotonous adult world. He narrated the incident as if he wished to be the protagonist of a real-life children’s hero story, which highlighted the naive, teenage tone. He thought he could enter maturity and adulthood by being the “hero” of the teenagers. The dramatic irony of the story highlighted his unawareness of the reality, therefore the tone of a naive, immature

When three young teenage girls enter the store wearing nothing but bathing suits, things begin to change for Sammy. Sammy takes notice of the actions of the girls; how they go against the normal “traffic flow” of the supermarket and break the social rules of society with their attire. It is these attributes that attract Sammy to them, as they represent freedom and escape from the life he finds himself in. When Lengel approaches them and reprimands them for what they are wearing, Sammy quits in the hopes of becoming the girls unsuspected hero.

We learn about Sammy's station in life through the setting of the story. He is not a big time war hero or superstar but a checker at a small town A & P, not moving up in his job or down, simply stagnant. The town is located north of Boston, five miles from a beach, with a summer colony on the Point. Sammy is ready to make a change. He wants to be part of the girls' world. Sammy's thoughts give us some insight in his feeling that the girls, just like the wealthy summer colony they came from, are out of his reach. "All of a sudden I slid right down her voice into her living room. Her father and all the other men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow ties...When my parents have somebody over they get lemonade and if it's a real racy affair Schlitz in tall glasses with 'They'll Do It Every time' cartoons stenciled on."

When Lengel sees the girls at the checkout counter, he says, “Girls, this isn’t the beach.” As the girls leave the in a hurry, Sammy says, “I quit.” Sammy hopes that the girls will hear, but they don’t and just keep on walking out to their car. Lengel reassures Sammy that he doesn’t want to quit, but Sammy wants to be these girls hero. As Sammy gets out to the parking lot, he looks around for the girls. He hoped that they would wait for him. Sammy thinks that he could hook-up with Queenie if he quits his job.

Sammy is the only character in this story who asserts his individuality. Two of the girls are simply following their leader, and Queenie is easily embarrassed and capitulates to Lengel. The other shoppers

Their wealth allows them to most likely live within a large city where the world moves much faster than in the rural regions and even in the suburbs. Whereas cities are always advancing in all aspects, the small communities, much like the one Sammy lives in, tend to hold onto tradition and more conservative values. The normal behavior for beach-goers in this small town is, as Updike so blatantly puts it, “the women generally put on a shirt or shorts or something before they get out of the car into the street.” (Lawn 401) The three girls are part of a new generation, one that is changing styles of fashion and lifestyle faster than ever before.

Sammy shows the reader his domineering and perceptive side as his description of each girl borders on rude but comical. He is able to pick out the "

When Sammy sees the store manager, Lengel, embarrass the girls, not only does Sammy see the ability to look heroic in front of his three mystery girls, like an "unsuspected hero" (Updike 618), he also sees the ability to get out of his boring nine to five job. Partially, because he is only nineteen and very immature in the way he views the world, he may have thought the girls would find him heroic. However, as soon as he quits his job

The story that this research paper is being written over is “A&P” by John Updike. This story is filled with good grammar and has a well written plot and good transition. A person reading the story “A&P” could see it as an interesting story filled with good symbolism. The main character, Sammy, uses a great deal of symbolism when describing the three girls in bathing suits who walked into the store he works in. the three girls in bathing suits that walked into the store where the center of the whole story. Whether it was the fat girl, the chubby-faced girl or the girl identified as the “queenie”, Sammy still went into great detail about the girls that came into the A&P store especially the one he named the queen. Through using the bathing suits, the main character Sammy established several points of symbolism in the story such as what the suits meant about each of the girls status and personality.

To Dessner ,critic of Updike's “A & P,” Sammy is naive to an outrageous extent but also ambitious in morals while also believing that Sammy has no care for the circumstances of his actions (315, 316). To some extent Dessner is correct about Sammy having ambitious morals, on page 413 in the Norton Intro to Literature shows how Sammy's morals are about treating people right even if they break the unwritten rules of a public place, yet his

This imagery shows the kind of scandalous clothing that they were wearing giving them the power to bring attention and desire to Sammy and his coworkers. They stood no chance to these appealing looks that the girls had with the help of the bathing suits and the environment that they were in as Sammy describes “You know, it’s one thing in to have a girl in a bathing suit down on the beach, where what with the glare nobody can look at each other much anyway, and another thing in the cool of the A & P, under the fluorescent lights, against all those stacked packages, with her feet paddling along naked over our checker-board green-and-cream rubber-tile floor.” (Updike 165). This also shows that Sammy can not control himself once he unleashes his descriptive imagination when thinking about Queenie and her friends walking through the store.

The story “A&P” applies figurative language as one way to prove the overall plot of the story. For example the text states things like, “The whole store was like a pinball machine and I didn't know which tunnel they’d come out of” or, “His face was dark gray and his back stiff, as if he’d just had an injection of iron”. Updike uses this to express detail and be dramatic of the girls and himself and the situation that they are in. The setting of the story contributes to the overall plot because the story takes place in the 1960s at a convenience store. This would change completely if this had taken place in today's world. The girls bathing suits would be accepted and there would be no story. If this had taken place in an earlier time (saying that bathing suits were invented in the 1940s) the girls would be even less accepted that they were in the story. The mood of the story toward the ending is sadness and regret because there comes more of an understanding of what Sammy feels. In the last line it states, “...my stomach kind of fell as I

Sammy faces the decision of staying at his job or leaving. His parents are friends with the manager of the store, Lengel. One day three girls walk into the store wearing nothing but bathing suits. Seeing it is a slow day, Sammy observes the girls as they go through the store and to his luck come to his check out station. Lengel then sees them at checkout and confronts the girls to tell them about the store’s policy that they should be dressed decently upon entering the store, “‘Girls, I don’t want to argue with you. After this come in here with your shoulders covered. It’s our policy’” (Updike). This is where Sammy has his transitioning experience. Upon hearing this conversation, Sammy tries be a hero for the girls by making the decision to quit his job, “The girls, and who’d blame, them are in a hurry to get out, so I say ‘I quit’ to Lengel quick enough for them to hear,

A&P is a short story written by John Updike in 1961, it follows the life of a young male protagonist named Sammy, who works in a local supermarket in a small town New England. One day he is going through his normal routine, not wanting to be there, being scolded by his boss and criticizing everyone in the store, even calling an old lady a “witch” . This all changes when three women enter the store dressed in bathing suits. Sammy then starts analyzing these girls and admiring them from afar, inspecting their every move and being enthralled and obsessed with them, he thinks they are beautiful, and is attracted to the supposed leader of the group, whom he calls “Queenie”. Sammy is into the girl, mainly because of what they’re wearing. His fantasies