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In the story, “A&P” by John Updike, the student identifies the differences of social classes between Sammy, a checkout clerk and Queenie, a wealthy girl that visit’s the store. Though not from the same class structure, Sammy is compelled to interact with the girl, however fails in doing so because she is considered privileged. 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. As the student develops his essay, Sammy begins to compare the girls to other customers in the store. From “houseslaves in pin curlers” to “an old party in baggy gray pants” (2192 ), Sammy negatively characterizes customers in contrast to the leader of the girls, Queenie. To Sammy, the girl is someone that is not from their town. She is everything that every girl envies and wants to be. In contrast to Sammy, she will spend her summer vacationing while he spends it working. It is clear to Sammy that their worlds are different, however it is also obvious that he would like to explore hers. The story unfolds when, “Lengel, the store’s manager” (2191) confronts the girls because they are dressed inappropriately. To Sammy, it is a moment of embarrassment and in defiance he quits his job. The student suggests that in quitting, “Sammy challenges social inequality and is a person who is trying to
There is two main types of people in the story "A&P by John Updike". The types are conformity vs rebellion. Sammy in the story is a rebel.
The points of view in “A&P” and “A Rose for Emily” show the fascination that people have with those in the upper class. Updike writes in the first person point of view. The narrator is Sammy, a cashier at the grocery store. Queenie, who walks around the A&P in only a bathing suit, fascinates him. Updike writes, “She had on a kind of dirty-pink… bathing suit with a little nubble all over it and, what got me, the straps were down.” (Updike, 2). He describes the girls in great detail throughout the story, obviously studying them. This first-person point of view shows the thoughts of Sammy, who is a member of the middle class. His fascination with Queenie is exemplary of the average person’s fascination with the rich. Sammy analyzes Queenie so much that he feels a particular connection to her, thinki...
Towards the beginning it is clear that Sammy is very young, inexperienced, and immature in regards to his interactions with girls while at work. Towards the beginning of the story a few girls walk in to Sammy’s work dressed in clothes that would not be deemed appropriate for society anywhere nonetheless the small town where the store is located. Sammy immediately begins to joke about and discuss the looks of the girls with his fellow worker. At this point in the story Sammy says some very unkind and disrespectful comments regarding the girls. One immature remark in particular that Sammy makes regarding the girls is “She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs.” Another examples in which Sammy describes the girls in a negative way is by stating that one of the girls has “two perfect scoops of vanilla ice cream”. Have these immature thoughts and opinions regarding the girls Sammy allows the girls to continue shopping in the
Sammy was obviously near the bottom of the class ladder, a place where he was extremely unhappy. His dead-end job at the grocery store, where lower class citizens are the prime patrons, was not a place he felt he belonged. He wanted to be a member of the family where the "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 glass plate and they were all holding drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them" (Updike 1028). Sammy realizes that Queenie comes from this sort of background, a very different one from his. When Queenie is being harassed by Lengel, Sammy sees that "she remembers her place, a place from which the crowd that runs the A & P must look pretty crummy" (Updike 1028). Queenie’s family was in the class that he envied, that he admired, that he wanted to become a part of.
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.
In John Updike’s “A&P”, the revolution of the young people of the current age against authority is explored and explained. “A&P” reveals the shift from conservative and deferential to avant-garde and disrespectful. Through the observation of the behavior of the characters in the story, one can receive a clear picture of the evolution of the sexual revolution that has come in this age. Sammy is the first character that is introduced, he is the protagonist and narrator of the story. Stoksie and Lengel are next, Stoksie is a fellow store clerk with Sammy as well as a good friend and Lengel is the manager of the store. Finally, Queenie is introduced. “A&P” begins with Sammy noticing these three girls that come into the store in nothing but their bathing suits. Sammy then proceeds to analyze each of the girls bodies, finally coming to rest on the leader of the group, his favorite, who he affectionately names to himself, “Queenie”. Although Sammy and Stoksie joke back and forth about the girls sexiness, he is privately revolted by the butchers bluntly ogling the girls as they search for whatever they wish to purchase. Throughout this recounting of the experience, one begins to wonder, when did girls become pieces of meat to be observed and handled by men? They used to be cherished and protected as they should be. The sexual revolution of the past and current decades have changed all of that.
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...
The clients of Sammy’s workplace are described as having “Six children”(Updike 645) with “Veracious vein mapping their legs”(Updike 645) and ”haven 't seen the ocean in twenty years”(Updike 645). Through the details Sammy provides about the clients explains that Sammy is starved from the sight of a girl his age, and upon the first sight of a girl nearing his age, he is instantly attracted to her. The three girls in the store are Sammy’s rescue from the small tiresome town. The final point that proves Sammy’s heroic action are because of his lust for the girls is the theme of the whole short
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 job appears to be a necessity for a son of a family that is not well off. The name he gives the girl who seems to be the object of his desire, Queenie, portrays a social difference from himself. Sammy further imagines the differences in class and living style when he describes Queenie's voice as "kind of tony, the way it ticked over 'picked up' and 'snacks'." He imagines her with aristocratic home life in describing “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 glass plate and they were holding drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them."Sammy compares his own parents occasions, where they serve their guests "lemonade and if it's a real racy affair Schlitz in tall glasses with 'They'll Do It Every Time' cartoons stenciled on."
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,
The grocery store setting is crucial to the theme. Sammy is forced to wear a tie and apron as part of his uniform which demonstrates exactly what he hates—conformity. “The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle—the girls were walking against the usual traffic—were pretty hilarious. You could see them…kind of jerk, or hop, or hiccup, but their eyes snapped back to their own baskets and on they pushed” (193). Sammy is critical of the costumers, referring to them as sheep because they follow the flock without breaking free and acting as an independent individual. The three girls cause a disruption
At the beginning of A&P, Sammy notices that three girls have walked into the store with only there bathing suits on. At first, poor Sammy cannot see the girls because he was at register 3 with his back toward the door. When they finally get into his sight, he immediately size the girls up. "The one that caught my eye first was the one in the placid green two-piece. She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs." He also gives a description of the other two girls. He says one has "a chubby berry-faces, her lips all bunched together under her nose and the tall one, with black hair that hadn't quite frizzed right, and one of these sunburns right across under the eyes and a chin that was too long--you know, the kind of girl other girls think is very "striking" and "attractive" but never quite makes it, as they very well know, which is why they like her so much." This comments illustrate his immaturity. Sammy refers to one of the girls as queen. He calls her queen because she seems to be the leader. ...
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
But after Sammy sees the way that Lengel treats the girls, he performs, what Updike described in an interview as, “an act of feminist protest” (PBS 153). By quitting his job Sammy is showing that he understands that woman should have the right to dress the way they want and should still be treated with respect. Sammy’s “gesture is a show of his affirmation towards the woman, and, more importantly, all women” (Porter 1157). Had Sammy done nothing and just let his boss walk all over the girls, then the girls stance would have been shortly forgotten. But because of his actions Lengel says the event will be felt, “for the rest of your life” (Updike 444). The three girls also perform a similar feminist protest by wearing their scandalous two piece bathing suits into a public store. Them standing up for their rights is what causes Sammy to change his mind about women.Their demonstration was the turning point in Sammy’s life that caused him to rebel against the establishment and stand up for something greater then himself. Had the three girls not shown up to the A&P that day, perhaps Sammy would have kept his outdated stance on what a woman could be or
...up on Stokesie like sheep, Engel explains that policy insists that shoulders must be covered. Policy is what the kingpins want. What others want is juvenile delinquency. Like a champ Sammy throws in the towel. He watched as 3 girls bucked the norm and alternately was confident enough to quit altogether. They get away from him and his feet are carrying him to the place of his residence rather than a car, reserved for higher classes. He ends with the thought how hard the world was to be to me hereafter. Sammy?s variety of verbal simulations and creations for the reader reveal the social and economic classes of basic society. The adults like animals, the attractive women- analyzed on a pedestal in full description and personification, employees get harped on too. Stoksie was a little to ambitious for a bagger, and management was regarded like the rest of the animals.