Sammy and the Setting in John Updike's "A&P" Essay

There is a sudden change in Sammy's attitude toward the girls throughout the story. At first, Sammy and his friend's he work

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.

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

      A more likely explanation for Sammy's abrupt resignation from his job is his complete boredom with it. This dissatisfaction with his work situation is plainly seen in his regard for a group that Sammy holds in even more contempt than the girls: the regular, paying customers. His references to them as "sheep," "houseslaves" and "pigs" reveals his attitude toward the group that keeps his employer in business--and Sammy in a job that he hates. His diatribe in the story's beginning directed at the "witch" who points out to him that he rang up the same purchase twice shows the unreasonable nature of this contempt for the customers: the mistake was quite clearly Sammy's fault, yet he lashes out at a customer who simply did what any

This Story takes place in 1961, in a small New England town 's “A&P” grocery store. Sammy, the narrator, is introduced as a grocery checker and an observer of the store 's patrons. He finds himself fascinated by a particular group of girls. Just in from the beach and still in their bathing suits, they are a stark contrast, to the otherwise plain store interior. Though it takes place over the period of a few minutes, it represents a much larger process of maturation. From the time the girls enter the grocery store, to the moment they leave, you can see changes in Sammy. At first, he sees only the physicality of the girls: how they look and what they are wearing, seem to be his only observations. It fascinates Sammy because he has never seen any girls like that come into the store especially Queenie. As they go about their errands, Sammy observes the reactions, of the other customers, to this trio of young women. Sammy wants to get out and do what teenagers do while on summer break and not just work in their parents store. In “A&P”, the social class and society expectations come hand in hand depending on the symbols throughout the story, in fact it allows the readers to get a full understanding of what went on in Sammy 's “World”.

      Also emerging from Sammy's thoughts were his attitudes about his place in the world. Throughout the story, he refers to the customers whom he is employed to serve as sheep's derogatory term implying that he thought them to be dumb and maddeningly consistent. However, the way he describes the girl who disrupted the flock showed that he regarded her with an attitude of awe and high esteem. He set her apart in a class different from his own when he described how he envisioned her family: "Her father and the other men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow ties and the women were in sandals picking up herring snacks on toothpicks off a big plate and they were all holding drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them" (2). Obviously, Sammy does not have a hard time deciding which class he likes better, for he constantly refers to the store in ways that reveal his contempt for it.

Sammy's strong feelings towards three girls in his store, whom he did not previously know, led him to make a choice that affected both him and his family. Sammy believed his boss, Lengel, was in the wrong to state the store policy of, "dressing decently" (378), to the three girls wearing bathing suits. Lengel also said how the store, "isn't the beach", so the girls should have their, "shoulders covered" (378). Sammy felt that Lengel was rude while talking to the girls and stated that Lengel,

In the story, the girls were in a rush to get out the store and on page 272, Sammy says “I

Sammy's jokes along with him, but he feels the only difference between himself, single, and the married Stokesie is their marital status. Stokesie is contented in working at the A&P, whereas Sammy seems undecided to take the same path of him. As he watch the other customers and his coworkers' reactions, he feels a twinge of guilt for the girls for having compromised themselves, without them realizing it. This feeling suddenly changes to excitement when the girls choose Sammy's checkout line to make a purchase. The store manager, Lengel, approaches Sammy's check out lane. He reprimands the girls for wearing a bathing suit in the establishment, citing a store policy. The girls are embarrassed and Queenie argue that they are only running a quick errands for her mother. But Lengel again tells them that they must dress appropriately next time. As the girls begin to leave the store, Sammy suddenly outburst that his quitting his job, as a sign of protest to Lengel offensively embarrassing the girls. Sammy hopes the girls are watching him. Lengel tries to talk Sammy out of it, telling him that he will regret the decision later and

Sammy is very distant to the girls when they first enter the store. When they first enter the store Sammy calls them “the girls” (200), but soon after he starts noticing their appearance and begins to list their characteristics such as “striking” (201) or “attractive” and he gives Queenie her name (201). In the beginning, Sammy is very reluctant to speak to the girls, so he begins to admire them from a far. Sammy goes from admiring the girls from afar with simple words to having a more intimate relationship with them from a distance; which proves he is reluctant from the time the come into the store. As Lengel yells at the girls for their appearance, Sammy says nothing. But as the girls leave the store Sammy states, “The girls, and who’d blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say, “I quit” (204). At first, Sammy is reluctant to if he would do anything about Lengel reprimanding the girls in such a public way, but he results in quitting his job. Sammy’s traits as a reluctant hero make him a protagonist

In the story, the three girls that walk in instantly catch Sammy’s attention with their lack of clothing. The girls are simply in the store to purchase snacks, but they do not evade from the staring looks of the boys or the “sheep”

Teenagers often shows behaviors that tent to be radical. The main reason is because they are still in a mental phase that makes them think and rationalize circumstances based on physical behaviors and physical appearances such as the aptitudes, a good-looking body or even the actions that other people do. The story of A&P created by john updike focuses on a teenager named Sammy who works in a A&P store and explains how he meet 3 girls while they were shopping, he gets attracted to Queenie who is the leader of the girls, everything seems good until manager Langer appears and starts an argument with Queenie about her dressing. However, what does this story and the facts previously stated have in common? This story not only reflects the nature

Sammy, Stokesie (another male employee), and Lengel show varying degrees of interest, showing the effectiveness of the girls’ strategy, but Lengel attempts to compromise it, thereby lessening their power. Lengel embarrasses the girls by exploiting them for their behavior and suggesting that they are dressed so inappropriately on purpose. Queenie tries to reclaim their superiority by responding, “We are decent” and implies that Lengel is actually the one being inappropriate. The three girls demonstrate an intense effect on the male employees of A&P, Sammy in particular. Their actions provoke the men into constant staring and making sly

In the beginning of the story Sammy sees three girls entering the grocery store in which he works. Although many people would say that the three girls were not dressed properly to be shopping in any

Additionally, Sammy spoke of his friend and coworker Stokesie, who was only three years older than him, as if he was just wasting away because he was already married with two kids. He even assumes that Stokesie will conform to working there for the rest of his life and become manager several decades later, in 1990. English professor at Hawaii State University, Catherine Sustana, wrote a literary analysis that explains Sammy’s reaction to Queenie as, “Sammy obviously finds the girls physically alluring, but he's also attracted by their rebellion. He doesn't want to be like the "sheep" he makes such fun of, the customers who are befuddled when the girls enter the store” (Sustana). Later, Sammy decides to stick up for the girls after his boss, Lengel, comes down a little hard on them for making a scene at the store. Sammy ends up quitting his job on the spot for two reasons; he wanted to make a heroic gesture in favor of the girls and he did not want to be like the sheep. Even though he made such a huge leap to not be a conformist and follow the sheep, he seems to have some amount of understanding because he expresses that he is apologetic to his family and that this would end up making his life harder.