An Opinion On A & P By John Updike

An Opinion on A&P

The short story by John Updike called “A&P” is a very interesting little story. The way that it is written is quite amusing. It seems as though the story takes place around the seventies maybe, but the reader never really knows because it is not specified. One might think this is the time frame because of how Sammy, the narrator of the story, writes as if this is the time period in which he is living. Sammy starts the story seeming as an ordinary grocery cashier in a small store, but it seems as if he has a little something to say about every person he sees or talks to, although he does not say anything out loud to the customers (or his boss for that matter). When three girls walk in the store wearing

A reader can tell that Sammy likes the main girl that he gives the nickname “Queenie” to. He thinks that she is the leader of the girls and also that she is the prettiest. The way that Sammy thinks about these girls really puts the story into perspective. A person would think that a few girls going into a grocery store to grab some snacks is just a part of life, but to hear it in the words of Sammy, it seems quite fascinating. At one point a reader might think of Sammy as sexist, because in his own words, “You never know for sure how girls’ minds work (do you really think it’s a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?)[…] (370). All in all, this is just the way that Sammy’s’ mind works; it is how he thinks about people. This is what makes it be known that he a younger man not from the current

The boss, Lengel, seems to think that he has authority over Sammy, which he kind of does being the boss and everything. Sammy knows that Lengel thinks he is the big man, Sammy says, “I forgot to say he thinks he’s going to be manager some sunny day, maybe in 1990 when it’s called the Great Alexandrov and Petooshki Tea Company or something”(371). This is where the story gets more complex; since Lengel thinks he is the big boss, he decides that he wants to say something to the girls about being in their bathing suits. The girls were only in the store to pick up one thing for “Queenie’s” mother, but from Sammy’s point of view, it seems as if Lengel just wanted to show that he is higher up than the other workers. Sammy thinks that Lengel disrespected the girls by telling them that they need to wear clothing the next time they came into the store, and this made Sammy mad; Sammy wanted to look like a hero of sorts to the girls and quits his job on the spot in hopes that the girls would hear him and know that he did it for