In the story, “A&P” by John Updike has hidden personal struggles that Sammy deals with throughout the story. Specifically, Sammy coming to age, letting his feeling get the best of him, and personally dealing with social conflicts.
The first personal struggle is Sammy coming to age. Transitioning from boyhood to adulthood can prove to be difficult, especially for a nineteen-year-old boy. We see this struggle as Sammy handles the situation with Lengal and the three girls when they are ready to check out. In the story, Sammy shows the reader his lack of maturity by stating, “I quit” to Lengal in hopes that the girls hear him as they leave. This shows he is not thinking about the consequences of showing off. Then, Sammy justifies his decision to quit when he says, “It seems to me that once you begin a gesture it’s fatal not to go through with it.” This is him taking consequences for his actions. He knows that the choice he made was immature, but instead of acting like it did not happen he bites the bullet and moves on with his life. Sammy also knows Lengel is right when he says,
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We can see the social struggle with Sammy when he introduces the reader to Queenie. He could have just called her the ringleader, the not quite tall one, or the girl in the pink. When Sammy says, “in her bare feet that much, putting down her heels and then letting the weight move along to her toes as if she was testing the floor with every step” he is inferring that she is testing to is if it is up to her standards. Sammy wonder this because to him all floors are the same, because he walks on the same one in the store. At the end of the story we see how Sammy depicts what her house life is compared to his own. Just by the different in liquor, the family drink shows a difference in class. This issue never is solved because like “Policy is what the kingpins want.” The policy referring to the rich get richer the poor get
Luckily, the narrator and Sammy both realize their deficiency after the situations with the other characters. In “A&P” the narrator’s turning point in his life is when he finds the bikers body in the lake next to him. In “Greasy Lake” the realization occurs after Sammy quits his job and tries to be the “hero” to those girls. In both stories, the protagonists’ have no idea what the real world is like, or how it works.
He leaves, with a clean consciousness, but the burden of not knowing what the future has in store. 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 wear, seem to be his only observations.
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 protagonist Sammy, a young boy of nineteen, makes a drastic 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.
The Sammy opens the first paragraph after the break in the story by saying, “Now here comes the sad part of the story, at least my family says it’s sad, but I don’t think it’s so sad myself.” (Updike, 150). He then goes on to say things such as, “Then everybody’s luck begins to run out” (Updike, 151). These quotes from the text lead up to the confrontation between Mr. Lengel and the girls. They stress the idea that there is tension leading up to that point and suggest to the reader that the relaxation and friendliness in the store from the beginning have now shifted into tension and hostility. This shows the reader that Sammy is still human, and that his emotions can be affected by things around him.
...s that Sammy is taking a stand and that Lengel cannot change his mind about quitting. When Sammy left the store, the girls where long gone. "His face was dark gray and his back stiff, as if he's just had an injection of iron, and my stomach kind of felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter." This quote illustrates that Sammy knows that his parents will not like the fact that he quit, but he realizes that he has to take charge with his life, and make his own chooses without being afraid of what his parents would think. He is very happy that he had taken a stand, and he let no one change it.
Sammy’s decision to quit was sudden, but the reader can infer that it is an action he has wanted to take, but had not had the chance to take, until now. Sammy was disturbed by the fact that Lengel had to point out the girls and embarrass them. Although the girls had already left, Sammy had to go through with his decision, and this was his chance to make the step towards
Sammy’s attitude can be seen with his observations and descriptions, it reveals his own immaturity and sense of superiority. Sammy’s shows his sense of superiority when he mocks the A&P customers as he describes them as “sheep” and how he presents his coworker Stokesie the “unimaginative drone”. His immaturity is seen when he is ogling the girls that walked in. When he decided to quit his job, it was done to impress Queenie and separate himself from her thinking he is like Stokesie. Sammy’s desire for Queenie, which begins as a young man’s interest in a pretty girl, ends up as a desire for escape from the A&P and, in effect his own life. It is not until he is outside and reflects on his actions that he understands, “my stomach kind of fell
Sammy begins normally, staring at the girls and making comments about them, for example Sammy notices that they are not even wearing shoes, one can only notice this if they are watching carefully. Sammy continues to stare at them and observe their behaviour as the story continues. He does not take his eyes off of the girls until he notices that his manager cis starting to head their way. He continues to spy on them and hears his manager tell the girls they are not properly dressed for the store, the girls are embarrassed and proceed to leave the store. Sammy was upset that his manager, a friend of his parents, outright humiliated the girls that walked in. Sammy did not agree with the statement that caused the girls to leave. Sammy disliked it so much that he decided to resign, knowing full well that it would make his parents mad at him “ He's been a friend of my parents for years. "Sammy, you don't want to do this to your Mom and Dad," he tells me. It's true, I don't” (Updike, 5). Sammy still went through with his decision, and then proceeded to look for the girls to try and show them that he took a stand for them and he was essentially on their side. Sammy could have stood back and watched the girls leave like all the other patrons did, but Sammy decided that it was not fair to the girls who only had to buy one
John Updike “A&P” is a story about the coming of age. “A&P” is established in such a way where the reader is actually able to put themselves in the shoes of the characters. The story is created and given an everyday scenario at a typical supermarket. Sammy, a young, judgmental, arrogant teen that finds himself in an extremely sticky situation, where he realizes that his actions will not exactly have the outcome he had originally hoped for. In the allegory “A&P”, John Updike shows how a person’s reaction can change over periods of time and how their actions may lead to unexpected
Sammy wants the reader to believe he had good reasons for quitting his job, even if he does not feel that way himself. To do this, he describes the customers watching his manager chastise the girls as “sheep, seeing a scene” (225). This comparison shows he does not have very much respect for the A&P-goers. He sees the patrons of the store as mindless creatures in a flock. If his customers are nothing but sheep, then quitting his job should not be a big deal—by describing them this way, he is trying to convince the reader that anyone can deal with them, and he should not have to. He does not like his job, or his manager, which is shown when he says “[t]he girls, and who’d blame them, are in a hurry to get out” (225)—he also is in a hurry to get out. He makes his decision to quit in this sentence after a variety of clauses, bringing on a feeling on nonchalance. He strings so many phrases in a row, and flatly says that he quits in the middle of them. This structure implies that he did not see quitting as such a big deal, as long as it was for a “noble” cause like sticking up for the girls his manager embarrassed. To reinforce the deed behind his decision, Sammy describes himself as an “unsuspected hero” (225). The image of a hero he is trying to create for himself should make quitting seem like the absolute best option. Despite his job being basic and
The main character in A&P, Sammy, is a perfect portrayal of a byronic hero. Sammy has a deep seeded internal crisis within him, there are some pretty girls in the A&P, and he acts the only way he knows how, with a grand gesture. His unseen act of heroism, although it falls flat, marks his over romainitism of the peril they were truly in atv the moment. He is proving to no one that he is fearless and a rebel against mainstream society despite having no reason. He ,like many overzealous teenagers, is a rebel without a cause. Miss Brill on the other hand is classified as the other. Her loneliness and isolation from society prompt her into denial about her status. She sees herself as someone of great power and importance, like someone in a play.
Sammy is astounded by three young girls that walk into his store in their bathing suits. He follows their every move as they peruse over the cookies and other goods. The first thing this typical nineteen boy recognizes is the one girl’s “can”. But then he goes on to say that this girl is one that other girls seems to think has potential but never really makes it with the guys. One girl though especially catches his eye. He starts to call her “Queenie” because of the way she carries herself and that she seems to be the leader of the pack. Sammy does nothing but watch her every move as they parade about the store. He even daydreams about going into her house with her rich family at a cocktail party. He notices everything about her and thinks there was nothing cuter than the way she pulls the money out of her top. His immature infatuation with this girl is one of the reasons Sammy makes the hasty decision to quit in the end.
Sammy's thoughts, as told to the reader in his narration, betray a deep understanding of the people he comes in contact with. When the girls walked into the store, he began to describe not only their looks, but also their attitudes and personalities without ever speaking to them. The one who held his attention was also the one he named "Queenie". On page one he says, She was the queen. She kind of led them, the other two peeking around and making their shoulders round. Sammy understood that she was the one in charge, and by saying that the other two made their shoulders round he showed that he realized their passivity was by choice; they followed her by their own wills.
Sammy also appears to objectify Queenie and often compares her or parts of her body to commodities. This is noticeable when Sammy compares Queenie’s chest to a “dented sheet of metal tilted in the light.” Also while Queenie is at the checkout paying for the Herring Snacks Sammy again compares Queenie’s chest to “the two smoothest scoops of vanilla I had ever known were there.” Though both of these incidents may highlight that Sammy is viewing Queenie as a product or commodity (that he could buy in the store) it is also possible that Updike is suggesting that Sammy lacks the maturity to view Queenie as a person rather than as a commodity, he is after all still only nineteen. Some critics also suggest that by quitting his job, he not only acted impulsively, but that again he is showing a lack of maturity. By quitting his job, it is also possible that Sammy is displaying a sense of individuality which mirrors the individuality that he believes Queenie and her friends are showing by walking around the store in their bathing
The first person narrator of John Updike’s “A&P” is a teenage boy working as a cashier who quits his job after his manager confronts three female customers about their inappropriate attire. This point of view gives readers a better understanding of the protagonist, Sammy. His precise descriptions of the girls’ physical appearance suggests that Sammy is an observant and always aware of his surroundings. Sammy’s point of view presents his natural attraction towards the opposite sex when he sees a group of girls walking into the grocery store wearing bikinis. This first-person narration conveys the protagonist’s thoughts and explains why Sammy quits his job at the end of the story; his character and point of view reinforce Updike’s central idea