The story "A & P" by John Updike is a tale of a young man who lets his desires and his anger get a little to far ahead of him and in the end winds up quitting his job. The main character of the story is Sammy. An eighteen year old boy from a small suburb outside Boston who works at an A & P Supermarket. Sammy seems like an average boy who seems a tad bit tired of the regular customers who come into his store. Regular customers including those older married women with multiple kids, the overweight lady who has no regrets wearing her bathing suit that doesnt quite cover, and the nit picking old ladies who spend years trying to catch an error by a cashier. Its the last ditch effort to make an impression on a beautiful young lady that ends up leaving Sammy unemployed. The story starts out in an A & P outside of Boston when in through the door walks three young lady sporting nothing except for revealing two piece bathing suits. Quickly noticed by Sammy, he changes his focus towards the three girls and critiques them in his head as he watches them shop about the store. Its the leader of the pack, which Sammy coins the nickname Queenie, that really catches his eye. A tall brown haired girl whose shoulder straps had fallen off of her shoulders and just dangled around her arms. Entranced by her beauty and feeling blessed when Queenie and her pack enter Sammys line, he begins to ring up her can of fancy herring snacks. As Queenie reaches into the center of her bikini to remove the dollar to pay for the snack in walks Lengel. Lengel, Sammys uptight dreary manager quickly notices the outfits of the three girls which sticks out like a full moon on a clear night begins to walk over and confront Queenie. Lengel proceeds to harass and embarrass Queenie and her friends about their attire. Sammy was quick to ring up the purchase and hand Queenie a bag with her food in it. Now was the time Sammy was to make his move, whether it be his hope just to catch the attention of such a thing of beauty or maybe it was his anger toward Lengel for ruing this beautiful moment that cashiers dream about . Not surprised at the girls attempt to speed out the store, Sammy quickly hollered out " I quit". The girls had heard him, but thats it, they continued to walk across the parking lot, it was just Sammy and Lengel now. Realizing what he had done, and still hoping by that some slim miracle the girls would turn around and crown him their hero. It wasnt gonna happen and Sammy knew he could now go back now and that his decision, as wrong it may have been was final. The story "A & P" by John Updike is a tale of a young man who lets his desires and his anger get a little to far ahead of him and in the end winds up quitting his job. The main character of the story is Sammy. An eighteen year old boy from a small suburb outside Boston who works at an A & P Supermarket. Sammy seems like an average boy who seems a tad bit tired of the regular customers who come into his store. Regular customers including those older married women with multiple kids, the overweight lady who has no regrets wearing her bathing suit that doesnt quite cover, and the nit picking old ladies who spend years trying to catch an error by a cashier. Its the last ditch effort to make an impression on a beautiful young lady that ends up leaving Sammy unemployed. The story starts out in an A & P outside of Boston when in through the door walks three young lady sporting nothing except for revealing two piece bathing suits. Quickly noticed by Sammy, he changes his focus towards the three girls and critiques them in his head as he watches them shop about the store. Its the leader of the pack, which Sammy coins the nickname Queenie, that really catches his eye. A tall brown haired girl whose shoulder straps had fallen off of her shoulders and just dangled around her arms. Entranced by her beauty and feeling blessed when Queenie and her pack enter Sammys line, he begins to ring up her can of fancy herring snacks. As Queenie reaches into the center of her bikini to remove the dollar to pay for the snack in walks Lengel. Lengel, Sammys uptight dreary manager quickly notices the outfits of the three girls which sticks out like a full moon on a clear night begins to walk over and confront Queenie. Lengel proceeds to harass and embarrass Queenie and her friends about their attire. Sammy was quick to ring up the purchase and hand Queenie a bag with her food in it. Now was the time Sammy was to make his move, whether it be his hope just to catch the attention of such a thing of beauty or maybe it was his anger toward Lengel for ruing this beautiful moment that cashiers dream about . Not surprised at the girls attempt to speed out the store, Sammy quickly hollered out " I quit". The girls had heard him, but thats it, they continued to walk across the parking lot, it was just Sammy and Lengel now. Realizing what he had done, and still hoping by that some slim miracle the girls would turn around and crown him their hero. It wasnt gonna happen and Sammy knew he could now go back now and that his decision, as wrong it may have been was final.
The main character in John Updike's short story “A&P” is Sammy. The story's first-person context gives the reader a unique insight toward the main character's own feelings and choices, as well as the reasons for the choices. The reader is allowed to closely observe Sammy's observations and first impressions of the three girls who come to the grocery store on a summer afternoon in the early 1960s. In order to understand this short story, one must first recognize the social climate of the era, the age of the main character, and the temptation this individual faces.
The plot of the story deals with three girls who come into the store dressed only in bathing suits. They make their entrance in the very first sentence, and they complicate Sammy's life. At first, Sammy, his older friend Stokesie, and McMahon the butcher all look at the girls lustfully. But of them all, only Sammy enjoys the entertainment the girls bring. The other shoppers crash their carts, look stunned, and are suddenly jarred out of their everyday routine. Sammy, who seems bored with his job, finds the change amusing. He even begins to feel sorry for the girls when everyone else stares at them lustfully. The plot's major conflict occurs late in the story when Lengel, the manager, comes in and scolds the girls. Sammy knows that they are on their way out of the store, but Lengel has to yell at them and make them feel bad.
At first glance, Sammy, the first-person narrator of John Updike's "A & P," would seem to present us with a simple and plausible explanation as to why he quits his job at the grocery store mentioned in the title: he is standing up for the girls that his boss, Lengel, has insulted. He even tries to sell us on this explanation by mentioning how the girls' embarrassment at the hands of the manager makes him feel "scrunchy" inside and by referring to himself as their "unsuspected hero" after he goes through with his "gesture." Upon closer examination, though, it does not seem plausible that Sammy would have quit in defense of girls whom he quite evidently despises, despite the lustful desires they invoke, and that more likely explanations of his action lie in his boredom with his menial job and his desire to rebel against his parents.
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
A & P takes place in a community inland that is sandy, yet near the coast. It starts out in the supermarket in which three girls in bathing suits walk in. One of these girls catches the eye of Sammy, which is working at the supermarket, Queenie. “The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid 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.” Sammy sees these girls and wants to be like them, free in a sense. As time goes on the girls finally get what they wanted and decided to check-out. They make there way to Sammy’s register where there comes Sammy’s manager, Lengel, to complain to the girls about their dress attire.
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.
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 observes their movements and gestures, up until the time of checkout. At which point, they are confronted by the store manager and chastised for their unacceptable appearance. He believes their attire is indecent. Sammy, feeling that the managerial display was unnecessary and unduly embarrassing for the girls, decides to quit his position as checker. Though he knows that his decision may be hasty, he knows that he has to follow through and he can never go back.
The story is a simple conflict followed by definitive action short story. It’s a wonderful portrayal of what a young man thinks and what he will stand for and what he will not. The fascinating part is how Sammy describes the young ladies as they enter the convenience store. Updike states “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”. Sammy is only talking about one of the three young ladies in this description. The descriptive words in the story are very thought provoking; Updike refers to the girls derrieres as “cans”. Imagery and symbolism are used frequently through out the story; Sammy describes the shoppers inside the A&P Updike uses this description “sheep pushing their carts down the aisles”.
Lengel, the manager of the store, spots the girls and gives them a hard time about their dress in the store. He tells them, “Girls, this isn’t the beach.” He says that they are not dressed appropriately to come into this grocery store. Lengel’s words cause Queenie to get embarrassed and start to blush. Sammy cannot believe this and gets frustrated at his boss. He doesn’t believe that it is right to prosecute these innocent girls for the way they are dressed. He also states at this point that the sheep are piling up over in Stokesie line trying to avoid all the commotion the scene has caused. I believe Sammy takes this as the last straw in a long string of aggravations.
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
...ned out to be a very exciting and fascinating novel. The plot was well structured and was very suspenseful. So basically we find out that Bram stoker uses gothic conventions at the right times to create a certain level of fear as well as suspense. One may argue that when Bram Stoker shows Gothic conventions throughout the novel, it determines the changes in familial and social structures taking place throughout the early eighteenth century.
A&P by John Updike is a short story about three girls and the voyeur cashier Sammy at A&P market. The story is told from Sammy's perspective as he watches the girls enter the store and peruses the aisles. Sammy speculates about what the girls are thinking about, what their personalities might be like, and even why they are shopping in bathing suits. A&P gives us a view into the societal norms of that time.
Thesis Statement: Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, is filled to the brim with gothic elements which gives the reader an atmosphere of mystery and horror.
An Atmosphere of Fear and Horror in the Opening Chapter of Dracula by Bram Stoker