John Updike's A & P

In the story “A&P” by John Updike, the main character Sammy, is faced with a tough decision on whether or not he should quit his job based on a bunch of girls. He is upset because one of his coworkers embarrassed a few girls for not wearing appropriate clothing in the store. Sammy’s anger is being purely driven by hormones and mental pictures of one of the girls as his girlfriend. Therefore, his decision to quit his job can not be justified.
Sammy was obviously attracted to Queenie, one of the girls who came in the store. He said, “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” (Updike 178). He put

a lot of time into describing everything about her. He made himself think that she was looking at him the same way he was looking at her even if she really was not.
Sammy more than likely fears that he will become like Lengel if he does not stand up for what he believes is right which is shown when he said “But it seems to me that once you begin a gesture it’s fatal not to go through with it” (Updike 182). He doesn’t want Lengel to gain power over him or feel like he has won which would happen if he would have taken his statement back. He also hoped that the girls would see him standing up for them and look to him as their “hero”.
Lengel told the girls, “We want you decently dressed when you come in here” (Updike 181). Sammy did not like Lengel telling the girls this because he was a teenage boy and did not think there was anything wrong with the girls coming in the store wearing clothes as if they were “at the beach” (Updike 181). Sammy already did not like Lengel because he had always thought of him himself as the “head lifeguard” (Updike 181), and him saying that to the girls was the last straw for Sammy.
In the end Sammy did not even get what his intentions for quitting were. He wanted the girls to see him as a hero but instead they were gone when he left the store. He wanted to prove himself to be independent and get rid of his dependence on his parents. However, he lost his job and the girls that he tried so hard to impress. He knew that all he had to look forward to then was “How hard the world was going to be to [him]” (Updike 182).