Sammy's Observation To Theorize The Personal Life Of Queenie

Sammy begins the story by describing the three girls in bathing suits who have walked into the A & P grocery store. The girl who catches his attention is a chunky girl in a plaid green two-piece swimsuit. As Sammy continues to observe the girls, his interest seems to focus only on the girl who leads the other two into the store. Sammy refers to the girl he likes as "Queenie",someone showing poise and leadership, while the other girls

This is shown in “A & P” when Sammy quits his job in protest over the girls being mistreated. He hopes to impress the girls with this. It is this example of self-deception that both stories concentrate that brings the young man to his emotional knees as he is forced to return to normal life after the rejection by the girls. For example, one aspect of the girls that fascinates and interests both boys is the whiteness of the girls' skin. In “Araby” the boy mentions the softness and "the white curve of her neck". This demonstrates the interest he places in the less noticed features. Sammy is equally as enthralled by the sensuality of his lady's "long white prima-donna legs". Also, in “A &P”, Sammy has found himself holding a dollar bill that he obtained from his lady love, to which he says to himself" it just having come from between the two smoothest scoops of vanilla I had ever known".

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,

In the story “A+P”, Sammy is immediately interested in the three females that enter the grocery store. His interest possibly provoked by the natural tendency of being a young teenage boy and they being three girls dressed in bathing suites alone. Once the three girls make their way through the grocery store, Sammy immediately begins making his own judgment of their character based on the way they walk and the way they look. Sammy while observing the three girls, names the middle girl, “Queenie” simply based on her appearance and the way she walks. He describes Queenie in a condescending way, “She didn’t look around, not this queen, and she just walked straight on slowly, on these long white prima-donna legs. She came down a little harder on her heels…” (Updike 259) After watching the girls walk through the grocery store to find their item he insults their intelligence without having spoken to them, “…(do you really think it’s a mind in there or just a little buzz

Sammy gets a glimpse of independence from queenie when she buys her mother’s crackers. As Sammy thinks of queenie with her herring snacks he imagines “queenies parents standing around eating and drinking only the best things in life” (Updike 288). This imagery shows how desperate Sammy is at becoming independent to be his own person. All of his fantasies are crushed when the girls are told to leave and Sammy tries to stand up and say “I quit “(Updike 289). Shocking one of his family’s longtime friends the store manager, and also not even getting the girl of his dreams. Sammy finds himself stuck without a job because of his unthoughtful outburst. While Sammy may have gained independence he lost thing in life to help him be more independent. His impulsive uneducated action made him loose a job and have to deal with things more on his own since his parents got him that job. With A&P Sammy acted more on impulse and not thinking through his plan. This leaves him independent from his job but not really independent in the since that he really wanted.

Sammy is obviously intelligent and is able to describe his thoughts so eloquently; it’s as if the reader is looking through a peephole in his mind. The first time Queenie speaks, he offers up an inner thought, “Her voice kind of startled me, the way voices do when you see the people first, coming out so flat and dumb yet kind of tony, too, the way it ticked over “pick up” and “snacks.” All of a sudden I slid right down her voice into her living room”. (18) This brilliant passage is not a random thought of a normal grocery store clerk with no education or ambition. It is the voice of a scholar who hasn’t yet found his true calling.

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

Sammy’s assumption of others is immature and serves only as a distraction from his self-distain. He describes, in great detail, the three girls who enter

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

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'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

In the short story, A & P, the main character, Sammy, is a nineteen year old working as a checkout boy. Sammy seems as a normal teen with a healthy interest in the opposite sex, but has a keen sense of detail and observes everything around him. Sammy takes quite a notice of 3 girls’ appearances as they enter the grocery store he works at. He notices everything about the girls, from the pattern of their bathing suits, to their different tan lines. Sammy comes up with nicknames for the girls and impressions of their personal lives. Sammy also observes the A&P customers in his eyes as “sheep” and “houseslaves,” and sees his coworker Stokesie as a “drone.” Sammy’s descriptions and observations of the people around him reveal his own weaknesses,

Sammy can not stop looking at Queenie, Plaid and Tall Girl. Sammy expresses himself by mentioning “they made my stomach rub the inside of my apron (Updike 5).” Sammy cannot think of any other thing that is appealing to look at. Sammy is noticing that customers are reluctantly looking at the girls obnoxious outfit and thought they “were pretty hilarious (Updike 5).” Sammy is enjoying this unanticipated event until he notices something strange thing happening in the meat section. The females are asking Mr. McMahon, the meat seller, where a certain product is in the store. As the

Sammy is not your average A & P employee. He’s not fit to follow rules, especially when they belittle people. He stands up for what he believes in. Though Sammy may come off as a witty sexist while admiring the first one ”in the plaid green two piece” with “a sweet broad soft looking can”(p.157) and then asks “do you really think it’s a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?”(p.158) when talking about “how girls’ minds work” (p.158), Sammy is very opinionated and intelligent for his age. Sammy makes a life changing decision based on a brief moment that happened in the A & P. At only nineteen, he realizes “how hard the world was going to be” (p.162) to him for being a rebel. “A & P” is narrated by Sammy in a first person