John Updike's "A&P" Essay

In "A&P," Sammy is initially drawn to three girls, Queenie, Plaid, and Big Tall Goony Goony, perusing the grocery store and while he is drawn to the leader of the group, Queenie, he soon begins to note how they are a contrast of what middle-class suburbanites consider to be acceptable. Sammy notes,

Before the girls enter the store, Sammy is unaware that the setting he is so judgmental of reflects his own life. Sammy feels that he is better than the rest of people at the A&P, referring to them as "sheep" and "house-slaves" because they never break from their daily routines. He also condescendingly talks about "whatever it is they[the

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.

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

“Sammy, you don’t want to do this to your Mom and Dad,” he tells me. It’s true, I don’t. But it seems to me that once you begin a gesture it’s fatal not to go through with it (323). This statement made by Sammy after quitting his job, was made towards the end of John Updike’s story “A&P”. Sammy had quit his job, a job that his parents helped him to get. Sammy opened up a whole new world; a world that I don’t think Sammy was ready for. He made a quick and irrational decision, rather if it affected his life or not we would never know.

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.

To begin with, Sammy shows a rude attitude through the story. He indicates little regard for other people’s age or knowledge. To illustrate, Sammy asserts the old aged customer, who reprimands Sammy for scanning her item two times while he is gawking at the girls, is “a witch about fifty … [who] would have burned her over in Salem” (Updike 320). Sammy’s despise toward this old lady—in fact shoppers—is perceptible. Also, when Sammy quits A&P, he talks discourteously to his manager Lengel. The readers soom comes to discover that Lengel is a friend of Sammy’s parents. Lengel attempts persude Sammy from making his rash decision, pointing out that he does not want to do to this to his

The girls, despite their obvious fashion faux-pas, carry themselves with a certain confidence and individuality that is rare in this society. Updike has Sammy refer to the other customers as sheep, pigs, house slaves, and even as having a fuselage- revealing how ‘empty’ these citizens are. The references to sheep are clear symbols for the conformity of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The trend (or revolution) towards non-conformity is quickly approaching as the three girls are leaders of this new movement.

Infrequency rather than frequency triggers the events that occur in the A&P grocery store. The sexually appealing nature of the girls provokes Sammy’s carnal appetite and engenders rebellious feelings towards conformity as well. This allows him to realize that his life has been tailored to that of the mundane lives of the other A&P employees and customers. However, this epiphany leads Sammy to act impulsively when the girls are being admonished for their revealing attire by Lengel. Lengel, the conventional and austere store manager, further embodies the conformity that surrounds Sammy as Lengel reprimands the girls for wearing bathing suits in a grocery store. As Sammy sees his manager embarrassing the girls, Sammy has the choice of being a “sheep” or breaking out of the conformed structure of the A&P store, such as the girls has done. Sammy is refreshed by the uniqueness the girls bring, and he also wants to be part of that. This shows that he wants to protect what the girls and what they represent, which is contrast to conformity. Sammy ultimately decides to defend the girls’ honor by quitting his job, and thus makes the statement of not being a “sheep” that is mindlessly led by society. Although this decision was driven partly by carnal feelings, it was primarily out of impulse and curiosity of what lies beyond the restricted borders of normalcy in the A&P grocery store. Even though Sammy quit his job for the girls,

As people age, maturity and wisdom is gained through every experiences. From the time a child turns eighteen and becomes an adult, they are required to deal with the realities of the real world and learn how to handle its responsibilities. In John Updike's short story, "A&P", the narrator Sammy, a young boy of nineteen, makes a major change to his life fueled by nothing more than his immaturity and desire to do what he wants and because of that, he has do deal with the consequences.

   At first glance, Sammy, the first-person narrator of John Updike's "A & P," would seem to present us with a simple and plausible explanation as to why he quits his job at the grocery store mentioned in the title: he is standing up for the girls that his boss, Lengel, has insulted. He even tries to sell us on this explanation by mentioning how the girls' embarrassment at the hands of the manager makes him feel "scrunchy" inside and by referring to himself as their "unsuspected hero" after he goes through with his "gesture." Upon closer examination, though, it does not seem plausible that Sammy would have quit in defense of girls whom he quite evidently despises, despite the lustful desires

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

The critical essay by Lawrence Jay Dessner explains the importance of the themes of irony and innocence in John Updike’s short story “A&P.” The essay begins with a short summary of the story, and introduces the character of Sammy. Dessner argues that the story depends on irony. The reader expects a certain action and reaction from Sammy, but instead he does the opposite. This irony provides an innocent air of humor due to Sammy’s lack of world knowledge and youthful outlook on life. The remainder of this literary criticism analyzes Sammy’s interactions with the other

Sammy is stuck in that difficult transition between childhood and adulthood. He is a nineteen-year-old cashier at an A&P, the protagonist in a story with the same name. John Updike, the author of "A&P," writes from Sammy's point of view, making him not only the main character but also the first person narrator. The tone of the story is set by Sammy's attitude, which is nonchalant but frank--he calls things as he sees them. There is a hint of sarcasm in Sammy's thoughts, for he tends to make crude references to everything he observes. Updike uses this motif to develop the character of Sammy, as many of these references relate to the idea of "play."

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,