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There is always a vantage point in everyone lives when they decide what kind of person they will become. Most of the time they saw it in the teenage age. The excitement of wanting to try new elements, such as drinking, smoking, or “love” exploring brought people to a new sky. Do they stay in the dark cloud or do they step out to the bright sky? Sammy of the “A&P” and the mystery narrator from “Greasy Lake” represent those in the clearest way that we can see.
Throughout the stories, both characters are showing strong scents of refusing their present status. Sammy is a nineteen years-old boy working at a grocery store who stands up against the manager to impress the girl he has fallen to. The mystery narrator from “Greasy Lake” is also nineteen years youth. He is playing as a bad character whom any teen thought was cool at that time – the bad boy. But what he experiences is not a prank but what a real bad guy would do. Luckily, Sammy and the narrator realize the dark cloud that covering them all this time after the conflict with others. “Wisdom comes alone through suffering”. (qtd Aeschylus)
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But life is not a fairytale. Standing there lonely, having no job is our Sammy. This is when Sam realizes his path, the true way to become mature. The moment when “Lengel sighs and begins to look very patient:” Sammy, you don’t want to do this to your mom and dad” (Updike) hold him back a little bit, we can feel the regret in his heart. But he cannot go back anymore, decision has been made. He gives up his last chance; from now on, he’s on his own. Sammy finally understands that it is responsible behavior but not playing “adult-like” game that will make him a true
...gel's suggestion that he relent and keep his job, Sammy is actually saying "no" to his parents and their attempt to put him on the road to middle-class respectability.
Along with Sammy, the other characters involved in this story are three girls shopping in the A & P in their bathing suits, whom Sammy names Plaid, Queenie and Big Tall Goony-Goony; Stokesie, Sammy's married co-worker; and Lengel, the A & P manager. The "A & P" is told from Sammy's point of view. Sammy presents himself as a nonchalant and flippant young man. He appears to be somewhat contemptuous of the older people shopping in the store. However, near the end of the story, we see that he does take responsibility for his conscience-driven behavior and decision, revealing his passage out of adolescence into adulthood through the courage of his convictions.
This story represents a coming-of-age for Sammy. 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. As the story progresses, he notices the interactions between the girls, and he even determines the hierarchy of the small dynamic. He observes their actions and how they affect the other patrons of the business. Rather, how the other people view the girl's actions. His thought process is maturing and he starts to see things as an adult might see them.
Sammy’s decision in the end to break away from the conformity that is in the A&P to establish himself is a raw truthful decision. He has chosen to follow his heart which Updike shows is what every person should do. This story is great for readers of all ages, because Sammy could be any person in modern contemporary society who is struggling to find themselves in a world dominated by conformity, rules, and standards of norms. Updike’s story is a powerful message to seek individualism. Although sometimes the road to self-identity is not known the journey getting there is worth all the while.
Sammy is a 19-year-old boy conveying a cocky but cute male attitude. He describes three girls entering the A & P, setting the tone of the story. "In walk these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. There was this chunky one, with the two piece-it was bright green and the seams on the bra were still sharp and her belly was still pretty pale...there was this one, with one of those chubby berry-faces, the lips all bunched together under her nose, this one, and a tall one, with black hair that hadn't quite frizzed righ...
“Sammy wishes to quit, but he resists doing so because his parents would regard his decision as 'the sad part of the story'” (Thompson 215). Sammy points out that he thinks of quitting his job many times during the story, subtle as they are, he begins with the observation of quitting during the summer rather the winter and the part where he has mentioned “the sad part of the story” (Up...
The narrator in Greasy Lake considers himself and his friends to be “bad” boys. He says that they wear leather jackets with ripped jeans and walk around with a toothpick in their mouths. He talks about how his friends were all dangerous characters. “Digby wore a gold star in his right ear and allowed his father to pay his college intuition; Jeff was thinking of quitting school to become a painter or musician” (Boyle pg. 294) The narrator has an immature personality, he wants to be known as being a bad boy, a tough guy but deep down he knows he’s not that at all.
In "A&P" Sammy changes from an immature teenager to a person who takes a stand for what he believes is wrong which is reflected in Sammy's words and actions. This paper is composed of three paragraphs. The first paragraph deals with the immature Sammy, the second concentrates on Sammy's beginning his maturing process, and the last focuses on his decision to take a stand no matter what the consequences are.
Sammy is so upset that his manager is rebuking the girl in the bathing suit that he quits his job on the spot. Knowing that his manager “made that pretty girl blush makes [him] feel so scrunchy inside” that he takes off his uniform (Updike 144). The girl has left the store and is not watching him, but his feeling for her are so strong that he does not want to work at the store. Although he knows his parents will be mad at him and that he knows the world is going to be hard, he follows through with his decision even though it affects his future. In Munro’s story, the girl is so miserable without Martin that she has “an impulse to shallow all the aspirins in the bathroom cachinnate” and “decide[s] to get drunk” (Munro 154, 155). The girl comes from a strict and responsible family that never advocated for drugs or alcohol, but because of young love she has thoughts of killing herself and getting drunk while babysitting. She does plead her nativity of alcohol, but she knew that both the aspirins and the alcohol would make her feel differently and hopefully, differently about Martin. She too knew her decisions would her affect her futures, but she was impartial to being a disappointment to her mother, the talk of the school and an unfixable reputation as a babysitter. Young love is so strong that it results in impulsive decisions that result in
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."
As the student begins his essay, he points out that Sammy is part of the lower class structure. He is an “eighteen-year-old boy who is working as a checkout clerk in an A&P in a small New England town five miles from the beach” (2191). While working an afternoon shift on Thursday, he notices “these girls in nothing but bathing suits” (2191) enter the store. It is in this scene that the student begins to identify the differences between the group of girls and Sammy.
The story begins as if it is any mundane workday at the A&P. Sammy is a typical teen, making sarcastic comparisons of the customers in the grocery store. He calls one of his customers a "witch" and says the other customers are "house slaves" and "sheep." Sammy obviously dislikes the job, but finds ways of passing the day. However, from the moment the three girls enter the A&P to their exit from the store, you can see dramatic changes in Sammy. Sammy lusts for the young girls, and nicknames the most attractive to him as “Queenie”. The young girls dressed in bathing suits fascinate him, and although he is staring at them excessively, he negatively comments on the others for doing the same. As the girls walk past the older employee, McMahon, Sammy notices how he ogled the girls and pats his mouth. Sammy appears disgusted by his gesture and begins to sympathize for the girls. “Poor kids, I began to feel sorry for them, they couldn’t help it" (Upd...
In the story "A&P," by John Updike, the main character Sammy makes the leap from an adolescent, knowing little more about life than what he has learned working at the local grocery store, into a man prepared for the rough road that lies ahead. As the story begins, Sammy is nineteen and has no real grasp for the fact that he is about to be living on his own working to support himself. Throughout the course of the story, he changes with a definite step into, first, a young man realizing that he must get out of the hole he is in and further into a man, who has a grasp on reality looking forward to starting his own family. In the beginning, Sammy is but a youth growing up learning what he knows about life in small town grocery store. His role models include, Stokesie, the twenty-two year-old, supporting a family doing the same job Sammy does yet aspiring to one day have the manager's position, and Lengel, the store manager who most certainly started out in the same place that Stokesie and he were already in. Stoksie, the great role model, continues to be as adolescent as Sammy, with his "Oh, Daddy, I feel so faint," and even Sammy sees this noting that "as far as I can tell that's the only difference (between he and I)." Sammy whittles away his days looking at pretty girls and thinking about the ways of people. He hardly realizes that this is how he will spend his entire existence if he doesn't soon get out of this job. During this day that will prove to change his life, he makes the step towards his realization. He decides that he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life working at an A&P competing for the store manager's position. Sammy thinks to himself about his parent's current social class and what they serve at cocktail parties. And, in turn, he thinks about what he will be serving, if he stays at the A&P, "When my parents have somebody over they get lemonade and if it's a real racy affair Schlitz in tall glasses with 'They'll Do It Every Time' cartoons stenciled on." He must get out and the sooner the better. He is still just an adolescent who hasn't completely thought through his decision and yet his mind is made up.
He knows that he is young but entering into the realm of adult responsibilities; thus, Sammy is in a transition from a teen to an adult. Sammy equates himself with his co-worker Stokesie who is an adult. Even though "Stokesie’s married, with two babies chalked up on his fuselage already" (Updike 1027), Sammy sees Stokesie and himself equal, with Stokesie’s family life as "the only difference" (Updike 1027). Sammy also seems to be pretty worldly for working in an A&P. Sammy hints on life existing beyond the A&P.
Now that Sammy has chosen to become a juvenile delinquent, he realizes "how hard the world was going to be" for him in the future. He has left a life of safety and direction for one of the complete opposite, and he must be willing to accept the responsibilities of his actions, no matter the consequences.