Summary Of ' A & P '

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,

The plot in each of these short stories focuses on normal American, middle-class life. “A&P” is about a young man that does not want to conform to society and what others want him to do. Sammy deviates from the social norm by quitting his job at the A&P while attempting to defend the girls wearing bathing suits. M. Gilbert Porter wrote an essay in The English Journal called “John Updike’s ‘A&P’: The Establishment and an Emersonian Cashier”. In this essay, he states that “Updike reveals the sensitive character of a nineteen-year-old grocery store clerk named Sammy, who rejects the standards of the A&P and in doing so commits himself to a kind of individual freedom” (Porter 1155). Porter is describing Sammy as a martyr for quitting his job because he believes that the standards of the A&P are unjust. He also states that Sammy

John Updike's "A&P" is about a boy named Sammy, who lives a simple life while working in a supermarket he seems to despise. As he is following his daily routine, three girls in bathing suits enter the store. The girls affect everyone's monotonous lives, especially Sammy's. Because the girls disrupt the routines of the store, Sammy becomes aware of his life and decides to change himself.

This story could make one wonder, how far would you go to get the person of your dreams. Three young ladies walk into the A&P store wearing nothing but bathing suits. The girls catch the attention of Sammy who is the cashier. Sammy watches the girls walk around the store while making mental notes about each one of the girls. When Mr. Lengel the store manager sees the girls, he lets them know that the store policy is to have your shoulders covered and to dress appropriately when you enter the store. This conversation upsets Sammy, so in the moment Sammy spontaneously quits his job in hopes of being the girl’s hero. After Sammy takes off his apron and walks out the door he looks around, but the girls have already gone. Within John Updike’s short story “A&P” the author uses foreshadowing, a dynamic character, and symbolism to show us how life can be unpredictable at times.

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

A&P is in first person perspective and is portrayed by Sammy the nineteen-year-old cashier. You can easily tell that the point of view is based on a nineteen-year-old due to the first sentence. It reads “In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I'm in the third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see them until they're over by the bread.” (Updike) The way that Sammy is talking is childish and someone that is in their thirties or older would not talk like that. John Updike made sure to make Sammy of a mind of a nineteen-year-old. Another proof of that is “I look around for my girls, but they're gone, of course. There wasn't anybody but some young married screaming with her children about some candy they didn't get by the door of a powder-blue Falcon station wagon.”

Why Sammy does what he does at the end of the story becomes a turning point in his life which is never revealed, and has left many readers wondering “Why did Sammy quit his job?” John Updike’s short story “A&P” takes place in the 1960’s, in a town located somewhere North of Boston and it talks about a 19-year old adolescent boy named Sammy, who works as a check-out clerk at a supermarket called A&P. The setting of the story uses foreshadowing in many ways to show how Sammy dislikes his job and yearns for freedom. For instance, he mentions that when you go through the punches and after doing it so often, it begins to make a little song that you hear words to. In Sammy’s case, he hears “Hello (bing) there, you (gung) hap-py pee-pul (splat),”¬¬¬

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.

A&P is described to be, “...five miles from a beach...but we’re right in the middle of town...north of Boston…” (Updike 19). Sammy’s description of the A&P present the setting as an ugly and boring place to be in. The fluorescent light is as cool as the “checkerboard green-and-cream rubber-tile floor”(Updike 19). The everyday grocery shoppers move in the same direction except for the girls in the swim suits, for they move against everyone else, and everything is organized into perfection along the tidy aisles. This degrading routine in this establishment is implied by Sammy’s careless reference to the usual shoppers as “sheep,” “houseslaves,” and “pigs” (Updike 18). These frequent customers seem to walk the store in oblivion to everything else around them; as Sammy points out, “I bet you could set off dynamite in an A&P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists…” (Updike 18).

In “A&P”, John Updike uses compelling diction, language, and description to enhance the perspective of Sammy within the story and his final decision to quit his job. The use of imagery within the supermarket develops the environment Sammy worked in to a greater extent and painted diverse pictures of the customers. The derogatory descriptions of Lengel and some customers was also significant in terms of revealing Sammy’s emotions about his job at A&P. The nature of the situation with the girls and descriptive language of the customers and environment were also significant factors.A spontaneous effort to portray Sammy’s power and independence was a significant aspect Updike made more interesting by implementing dialogue, diction, and theme.

In the short story A&P by John Updike, the story is told in a first person narrative of a teenage boy working as a cashier in an A&P grocery store on a hot summer day. The story begins with the teenage boy named Sammy becoming preoccupied by a group of three teenage girls that walk into the grocery store wearing bathing suits. Sammy admires the girl's beauty as most nineteen year old adolescent boys would, in a slightly lewd and immature nature. His grammar is flawed and he is clearly not of an upper-class family, his

Choice and Class are the two major themes in Updike’s “A&P,” displayed through the main character, Sammy, and several background characters, including the three girls the story is based around. These two ideals are explored through the point of view of the main character, the depth in which the characters are described(both physically and in their own life) and how the characters are framed in relation to one another.

As a reader, I absolutely fell in love the “A&P” story, the content was surreal and hilarious. Another reason I liked the book is because of the order it was written and how every part of the story led with even more excitement than the previous part. The way I responded to the work isn’t any different on how I felt about the book; I found the book to be quite amazing. Although after reading the book for the second and third time, the buildup excitement of the book went down because I already knew what was to come next. My view of the book certainly did not change. It takes guts for someone to quit their job for a lady whom he never meets again, if you ask me.

Sammy, a 19-year-old cashier at the A&P, narrates A&P. In this first-person narrative, the narrator tells us everything as he sees it, but since it is a limited point of view the narrator is unreliable. But this allows the reader to notice growth in the character and it helps demonstrate how the narrator is different than the people around him, as his actions suggest. We notice a change in the point of view as the story progresses. At first we see the narrator complaining about the conformity in his society then later acknowledges the problem and acts on it. This occurs with the introduction of the girls, who are seen as mocking the conformity by wearing bathing suits into A&P. Seeing this, the narrator tries to show support for this act unconformity by quitting his job at A&P removing his bow tie and apron in the process when he feels the girls were mistreated and asked to leave store. With the introduction of the issue of conformity, which is a serious issue, we still notice the use of humor and irony in the tone though at the end even though the narrator felt he did the right thing by pointing out that the way the girls were treated was wrong and quitting his job, but he was left lost as his act was seen unnoticed, ending the story

“A&P” is narrated in first person by a teenage boy named Sammy; who just happens to be the cashier of the small midtown grocery store on the east coast when three teenage girls in beach attire decide to walk in and catch his eye. Sammy’s excitement towards the girls, specifically Queenie, goes so deep that he mistakenly rings up the wrong customer’s HiHo crackers twice when he starts getting hell from the witch like old lady. Sammy watches very closely as the three girls make their ways down the aisles. He describes each girl in perfect sequence from head to toe. Not one feature slips Sammy’s mind it seems. Not only is Sammy in absolute awe over these young woman’s beauty, he is also astonished that they are in the grocery store with nothing but bathing suits on.