John Updike's A & P

Sammy, having heard enough of Lengel humiliating the girls, takes his heroic stand announcing that “he quit.” He even takes off his apron that had his name personally stitch on it and his bow tie. Another reason why Sammy quit the store probably gravitates toward Queenie and he may have wanted to talk to her, but Lengel ruined his chance by interfering. For example, Sammy said, "remembering how he made that pretty girl blush makes me so scrunchy inside I punched the No Sale tab.” He probably wanted to make Queenie blush by giving her compliments, but Lengel embarrassed her by making judgment due to her outfit and the situation definitely had an effect on Sammy since he punched the machine. Clearly, Sammy wanted the attention and was hoping the girls will give him some recognition for defending them, which became a lost cause and once he realized that his outburst didn’t attract the girls, his intentions changed. Sammy quit displaying that he’s becoming more independent as well as his transition to adulthood while at the same time defending the girls. It would also appear that he might’ve relied on his parents for some time. During the conversation between Sammy and Lengel before making his rash decision to quit, Lengel said, “Sammy, you don’t want to do this to your Mom and Dad,” implying that he will disappoint his parents if they quit because his parents are a friend of Lengel’s and they pretty much got Sammy the job at A&P. This shows that his parents’ efforts to get him the job would be a waste of time on

young man’s life. While the customers of the store scorn the girls’ immodesty, a cashier, Sammy,

The short story “A & P” by John Updike is about a young man’s decision to stand up for others or, in the other characters’ opinions, make a foolish decision by abandoning his responsibility. At first he believes his decision is the right thing, quitting his job for how the girls were being treated. Then when he gets outside of the store, he realizes the world he just left behind, regrets his decision, and begins to question his actions. He starts to overthink what the world has to offer him, making his worldview change from underrating to overrating. His “unsure of the world’s dangers” worldview in the beginning changes to overrating the dangers of the future ahead at the end of the story causing Sammy to change throughout “A & P”.

Style – in writing, style can best be defined as the way an author makes use of his or her words in regards to language. The word choices in which the author uses throughout the story can help establish the uniqueness of his or her use of speech through the story’s title, structure, punctuation, setting and the communication between characters.

Lengel catches the girls breaking the dress code, so he makes them leave. Sammy, however, disagrees with him and quits his job. On page 14, lines 261-264, the author states, “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.” Sammy thinks that it is unfair for Lengel to embarrass the girls for calling them out. He wouldn’t quit his job for no reason, so he uses this chance to express his feelings towards the

Sometimes doing the right thing may not turn out to be the best. In the story “A & P” by John Updike, Sammy’s actions have caused himself to lose his job. A & P is a story about a guy that works at a grocery store and when three teenage girls come into the store all of his attention is brought onto them because they are wearing bathing suits. However, the manager of the store does not approve on what the girls are wearing so he asked them to never come back into the store dressed like that. Sammy the guy that is distracted by the girls sticks up for the girls because he likes them and wants to impress them, in the end he quits his job because he is trying to act cool in front of the girls, but sadly the girls pay no attention to what he did for them and they just keep on living with their lives.

The story "A&P" emphasizes the viewpoints of people living in a small town. John Updike's carefully crafted sexual diction is subtly hidden throughout his short story, demonstrating how young girls are sexualized with phrases such as "two smoothest scoops of vanilla" and "a sweet broad soft-looking can". Sammy, a cashier working at A&P, describes the three girls that walk into the store, wearing only their bathing suits. He expresses his thoughts of the girls and their bodies, using specific words to do so. When the three young girls walk into the A&P, they grasp the attention of many customers and workers.

When a young boy sees girls in bikinis it can make his day, it can also make it his worst. In the story “A&P” by John Updike, A young boy at work sees three girls walking in in bikinis and the turn of events leads him jobless. This teen boy portrays how easy it is to stumble upon adult situations. In the story, the main character (Young teen boy) Sammy is working at a supermarket. While working he is used to seeing people walk in and out of the stores until he sees an unusual group of girls.

Even though Lengel understands the situation he is making a big deal out of it. For Sammy it is like a journey to the center of the Earth as he experiences and remembers that there is more to life than the boring job he does and the dull life he lives. According to the narrator “All this while, the customers had been showing up with their carts but, you know, sheep, seeing a scene.. not wanting to miss a word”(272). As you can imagine, Lengel was causing a scene and the way he handled the girls was unnecessary.

"So I say 'I quit' to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they'll stop and watch me." When Sammy quits his job, it is obvious he is doing out of envy for these girls. He mentions that he was hoping for the girls to stop and watch him but after he quits and walks out of the A&P grocery store, the girls are gone. "I look around for my girls, but they are gone, of course." Sammy's jealousy towards the girls has grown from their good looks to their parents parties to his quitting his job just so they notice him, which they

The final conflict in the story is more of an inner and outer conflict for Sammy. See Sammy is in the age where girls run around his mind 24/7 and he will do anything that will make him seem ‘cool’ and that of a bad boy. Goss explains that “Sammy becomes fully conscious of the young women as thinking and feeling beings (20),” but “…shows his budding understanding of their predicament as objects of male scrutiny and evaluation (20)” of the males perspective. In the story, Lengel is the store manager and is described as “the Voice of The Establishment (17), by Overmyer. Sammy tries to compensate for the scene Lengel made the girls go through about “coming in with their shoulders covered (166).” As the girls rushed to leave the store, Sammy quits before Lengel to try and see if the girls (especially Queenie) would stay and watch or do something about him quitting, but they didn’t. He attempted to make it seem that what Lengel did was humiliating and uncalled for, yet Lengelk didn’t find it appropriate for the girls to walk around the store somewhat naked. Goss

Sammy’s a young guy working at a grocery store called A&P. When three girls came in the store and he notice them right away. Lengel, the store manager, embarrassed the three girls for wearing swimsuit because it wasn’t allowed in the store. Sammy quit his job and wanted to be the hero for the girls. Sammy decision to quit wasn’t the greatest idea. He was a rebellion, judgment and an immature person.

The store A&P by John Updike was a very realistic story that could very well happen in real life. He painted the grocery store as if you were there. He gave very vivid and detailed description of not only the grocery store but the customer's in it. The story was told from Sammy's point of view as a cashier working at the grocery store called the A&P. He described customers shopping and going up and down the aisles picking up and putting back items while checking things off their lists. The author included the location of the town having a Congressional church, newspaper stand, some banks and even a broke down sewer drain. In my opinion Sammy could have quit for many reasons unknown to the reader. It could have been that he was trying to be

Have you ever forgotten to pick up snacks or drinks from the grocery store before you went to the beach? Well, nearly everyone has, maybe even the Kardashian’s. I am going to write about the story “A&P” adding in secondary sources because I personally had a similar experience to what the girls went through in this story and I want to compare my feeling to the way others may feel about this short story. “A&P” is a short story by author John Updike about three girls walking into the A&P with bathing suits on, supposedly forgetting to pick up something that is necessary for them to hang out at the beach. Upon walking in the store, the girls find everything great until the manager causes a big scene between them because they are not fully

just as she was paying for her snacks in Sammy’s isle. Mr. Lengel could not tolerate the girl’s indecency as a pastor and politely asked her that the next time she came in the store she needed to be more decent as prescribed by store policy. The girl gives some back talk that brought the scolding words of Mr. Lengel which embarrassed her; that cause Sammy to become disgruntled with Mr. Lengel and tried to impress the girls so much so that he ups and leaves the store to the unspoken