Lengel's Struggle Revealed In The A & P

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The older generation thought it was for the worst, because the younger generation seemed to be going wild. The younger generation thought it was for the best, because of the freedom offered. Sammy, who is a typical 19 year old boy, gets side tracked by three beautiful girls and quits his job. Queenie, the most attractive leader of the three girls, defends, herself and her friends from the store manager when he tells the girls they are not dressed to company policy. Lengel, the store manager, is very uptight and all for the store company policy. This story has a lot of contrasting themes, including generational, traditional, and coming of age. In earlier years, women wore clothes that covered their entire bodies. They had parents who were …show more content…

Younger girls did not believe in covering of their bodies any more, because they felt they get more attention wearing half-dressed clothes. Lengel, tells the girls " we want you decently dressed when you come in here." Queenie and her friends felt that they were not doing any thing wrong. Queenie, says " we are dressed decent " as their walked in the A&P with just bathing suits on. The older generation sees this as disrespect to the elderly. They felt that girls in the new generation felt no remorse in their way of dressing, and they did not care about being a typical teenage girl. It was a decade of extremes, of transformational change and bizarre contrasts. This is when the generation conflicts. The coming of age theme is evident seen in the teenagers of the new generation. They were nothing like the traditional teenagers in the early 60s. Girls were not respecting their parents, girls' clothing were to over rated, girls choice of clothing were not appropriate to the older generation. Young girls did not worry if every man turned his head to look at them, for the clothes they had on. The older generation worked hard and put a lot of time in raising their younger girls up, to be respectful young

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