Literary Analysis Essay
Students Name
Schools Affiliations
Literature Essay
Analysis of Sammy’s Character
Sammy is the main character and the narrator in the A&P short story. The first encounter with Sammy was at the A&P grocery store where he is working in the checkout lane. He is aged 19 and very opinionated about the customers visiting the grocery store. From the beginning of the story, Sammy is not interested in his job at the store; he largely concentrates in judging the customers based on their appearance.
He is highly observant, judgmental, and immature. Sammy observes every detail of the teenager girls who entered the store and made a description of their bare fresh in loving details. In fact, he clearly described
…show more content…
the patterns and the texture of the girl’s bathing suits and the tan lanes. He noted that one of the girls who looked fatter and who wore a bikini was more beautiful and named her Queenie. It is evident from Sammy’s description of Queenie; he found her sexually arousing (Updike & Delessert, 1986). He described Queenie as pretty since between the top of the suit and head was not covered. The judgmental nature of Sammy is revealed by his nature to be impressed by girls dependent on their appearance. The girls dressing and especially Queenie continuously attract him. He went ahead to label Queenie to be the leader of the group. His immaturity is evident as he can prefer the girls than the regular customers of the store due to their ogling attractiveness. Amazingly, he had described the customers of the store as house slaves and sheep. He quit his job hoping that the girls would recognize his action. Nevertheless, he is frustrated after quitting his job as the gesture went unnoticed and the girls had already vanished when he arrived at the parking. Being allured by the girls dressing to the extent of compromising the policy of the store is both foolish and immature. It expected that workers in a supermarket would be more committed to satisfying the business and customers needs than their self-interests. Sammy's twinge feeling is hypocritical. It is only that he is feeling jealous that the other employees have noted the attractiveness in the girls. Evidently, he was excited when the girls started making their way towards his checkout line. Despite the advice from Lengel, Sammy decides to quit the job as a show off action. How could he quit his job for girls he has never seen? Most of his decision and perception depicts him as foolish and immature. Comparison of Sammy’s character with the Lone Ranger narrator Both the narrator of the Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven story and Sammy in the A&P has special problems that facilitate the sequential development of the story. Sammy is judgmental, observational, and emotional. As a result, the author is able to combine his character with his little interests with work at the A&P grocery store. He could judge everyone who entered into the store. It is the reason that he immediately noted when the girls entered the store. He was attracted emotionally and sexually to them. Greatly, when other employees were interested in the girls, he feels a twinge for them. It is unfortunate that Sammy disliked the other customers in the town and described them as sheep. However, that day he got interested in the little girls who entered the store with bathing suits. Is this the way he would admire the customers of the store depending on what they wore? Would he have stayed to the job if the girls were allowed to make a purchase? Unfortunately, Sammy had noted that the store was not near a beach and, therefore, the attire they wore at was normally in the wrong place. Notably, the policies of the store did not allow such bathing suits in the store. Sammy's character helps in the development and the buildup of the story. Similarly, the narrator in the Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven story is taken to be insane and, more importantly, he is a drunkard.
His race and the character help in the development of the story. The narrator is taken to be a crazy Indian by the white and keeps on intimidating them. While making his way to the store the cashier becomes uncomfortable with his race fearing robbery (Alexie, 1993). The narrator is aware of the cashier’s perception towards him. Therefore, in their conservation, he takes a full advantage towards the cashier. After the cashier is relieved that robbery will not take place, he allowed the narrator to take away the Creamsicle without paying.
Notably, the narrator is a drunkard and the decision to get back to his girlfriend leaves questions on the success and their progress with life. In fact, nothing is solved between themselves except apologizing to another. The narrator had a relationship with a white, and they fiercely fought after he got drunk. Similarly, Sammy is immature and even after the advice from Lengel he makes a decision to quit his job in defense of the girls he saw for the first time in the store. Despite that, the girls did not recognize his action and he is left
…show more content…
jobless. Faulkner and O’Connor characters For the characters to be real in a story, they must have some features found in the human being. The authors have made the characters that are believable and are three-dimensional. A three-dimensional character has certain characteristics that make him real. First, they have a purpose to live, that is, they have goals and objectives to attain in life. Second, they take actions in the effort to solve the difficulties they encounter. Third, the characters have the ability to evaluate their decisions, progress in life, situations and other people. Faulkner and O’Connor have made characters that fit in the real world. They have successfully communicated the tragedy. In the Faulkner’s ‘A Rose for Emily’ the main characters are, Emily Grierson, Mr. Grieson and Homer Barron. Emily character shocks the people in the town by adopting a very mysterious way of life (Faulkner, 1993). She is very secretful and avoids interacting with the other people. Emily was not married since her father rejected all her suitors. Strangely, she held that his father was not dead for three consecutive days. Afterward, she secretly killed the Home Barron and hid him in the house. People in the town suddenly stopped seeing her until the day they learned about her death. It was noted that Emily had been a necrophiliac. Mr. Grierson is the father of Emily. He controlled every aspect of her daughter’s life: he never allowed Emily to be married since he turned down all his suitors. Emily denied the death of her father for three days despite receiving condolences from the women in town. Homer Barron is a scandalous man, and town people consider their relationship with Emily a scandal. In the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by O’Connor, a family unit is getting ready for a tour to Florida but the Grandmother desires to visit Tennessee citing the escape of a convict known as Misfit. The Baileys wife could not convince his husband on visiting another place since she is not interested in visiting Tennessee too. Grandmother wanted her to convince her husband. The Grandmother travels with Pitty Sing, the cat of the family, despite the objection from the Bailey (O'Connor & Asals, 1993). The grandmother succeeded in convincing the family to visit a plantation that she visited when she was a little girl. However, not after they had turned to a backboard that the grandmother noticed that the place she said was in Tennessee and not in Georgia. Agitated by the mistake the grandmother, a cat escaped and made Bailey lose control and cause an accident. Afterwards, Misfit and his Cronies kill them. The characters in the Faulkner and O’Connor’s stories contribute significantly to the development of irony.
The Emily’s love to Homer is ironic. Instead of marrying him until death, he decides to murder Barron so that they can have a lasting bond. The title “A Rose for Emily” was itself ironic. The Rose given to Emily was thorns considering that she could not be married and in return, she only produced thorns. It is evident that the Grandmother in the Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is hard to Find” judge’s people by their immediate appearance. It is ironic that the grandmother described Misfit as a good man than a
psychopath. References Alexie, S. (1993). The Lone Ranger and Tonto fistfight in heaven. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. Faulkner, W. (1993). Selected short stories of William Faulkner. New York: Modern Library. O'Connor, F., & Asals, F. (1993). A good man is hard to find. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Updike, J., & Delessert, E. (1986). A & P: Lust in the aisles. Minneapolis, Minn: Redpath Press.
In “A&P”Sammy demonstrates the ability in both watching others and gathering bits of knowledge from those perceptions, however the young ladies propose to him the genuine riddle of different personalities. At the point when a client censures Sammy for an oversight, Sammy portrays the lady as a witch straight out of Salem and considers, "I know it made her day to outing me up." For Sammy, the clients at the “A&P” are very straightforward. The same holds valid for the administrator, who Sammy accepts he has completely made sense of. At the point when the young ladies enter the store, on the other hand, Sammy ponders what on earth they're considering. Despite the fact that Sammy attempts to comprehend the young ladies, particularly Queenie, and accepts that he is fruitful, his certainty is undermined by his activities toward the end of the story. His excellent motion of sensitivity for the young ladies his stopping goes unnoticed, and his inspirations are tangled and confounded. He is left with a feeling that, for all his capacity to watch and comprehend others, he should now turn his curious eye on
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...
He criticizes his family and their background when he says, “when my parents have somebody over they get lemonade and if it’s a real racy affair, Schlitz in tall glasses with ‘They’ll do it every time’ cartoons stenciled on.” Sammy desires to move from a blue collar to a white collar family to differentiate him from his family. He shows his growing maturity when he says, “the girls who’d blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say ‘I quit’ to Lengal quick enough for them to hear, hoping they’ll stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero.” He wants to be noticed by the girls for his selfless act of quitting his job for them. His plan does not work though, and the girls leave him to face Lengal alone. Lengal confronts Sammy and says, “Sammy, you don’t want to do this to your mom and dad.” Sammy ponders Lengal’s comment and thinks to himself, “It’s true, I don’t. But it seems to me that once you begin a gesture it’s fatal not to go through with it.” Sammy has begun to reach maturity and now wants to make his own decisions concerning his future and how he spends
During the progression of A&P, Sammy's words and action reflect his growth from an immature teenager to a person who takes a stand for what he believes is wrong.
Sammy tells us he is nineteen years old. He is a check-out clerk in the local A&P, where the boss, Lengel, is a friend of Sammy's parents. Sammy does not seem to like his job very much. He calls one of his customers a "witch" and says the other customers are "houseslaves" and "sheep." He himself comes from a middle-class family. When they have a party, he says, they serve "lemonade and if it's a real racy affair Schlitz in tall glasses with 'They'll Do It Every Time' cartoons stencilled on" (15). In addition, Sammy is sexist. He gives long, loving descriptions of the girls who cause all the trouble, and he thinks at first that girls may not even have minds, asking, "do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?" (13) However, he does change as the plot goes on.
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.
Before the girls enter the store, Sammy is unaware that the setting he is so judgmental of reflects his own life. Sammy feels that he is better than the rest of people at the A&P, referring to them as "sheep" and "house-slaves" because they never break from their daily routines. He also condescendingly talks about "whatever it is they[the customers]...mutter." Reinforcing his superiority above the people in the store, Sammy sees himself as a person that can seldom be "trip[ped]...up." Although he sees himself being superior to the store, the reality is that the store closely reflects Sammy's life. He seems to have a long-term commitment to the store since his apron has his name stitched on it, and he has been working at the store long enough to have memorized the entire contents of the "cat-and-dog-food-breakfast-cereal-macaroni-rice-raisins-seasonings-spreads-spaghetti-soft drinks-crackers-and-cookies." His day is also filled with the routine of working at the register, a routine that is so familiar that he has created a cash register song. Sammy also identifies with his co-worker Stokesie, "the responsible married man," and therefore wishes to someday be the manager of the store, like Lengel. Even the "checkerboard" floor represents a game of checkers, a simple one-directional game that closely models Sammy's life. Although Sammy is nineteen ...
Sammy’s immature behavior is predominant throughout the short story in multiple occasions. He is judgmental
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.
Two Works Cited In John Updike’s "A & P," Sammy is accused of quitting his job for childlike, immature reasons. Nathan Hatcher states, "In reality, Sammy quit his job not on a matter of ideals, but rather as a means of showing off and trying to impress the girls, specially Queenie" (37), but Sammy’s motive runs much deeper than that. He was searching for a sense of personal gain and satisfaction. By taking sides with the girls, he momentarily rises in class to meet their standards and the standards of the upper-class.
People often take their place in society for granted. They accept that position into which they are born, grow up in it, and pass that position on to their children. This cycle continues until someone is born who has enough vision to step out of his circle and investigate other ways of life in which he might thrive. One such person is embodied in the character of Sammy in A&P, by John Updike. Sammy is the narrator of the story and describes an incident in the store where he encounters a conflict between the members of two completely different worlds the world that he was born into and the world of a girl that captures his mind. Through his thoughts, attitudes, and actions, Sammy shows that he is caught between the two worlds of his customers at the A&P.
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.
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.
He knows that he is young but entering into the realm of adult responsibilities; thus, Sammy is in a transition from a teen to an adult. Sammy equates himself with his co-worker Stokesie who is an adult. Even though "Stokesie’s married, with two babies chalked up on his fuselage already" (Updike 1027), Sammy sees Stokesie and himself equal, with Stokesie’s family life as "the only difference" (Updike 1027). Sammy also seems to be pretty worldly for working in an A&P. Sammy hints on life existing beyond the A&P.
The beginning of “A & P” starts with the main character, Sammy, at work when three girls in nothing but bathing suits walks in. According to Lawrence Dessner, the A & P check out counter showed Sammy a sample of insult and indignity of ordinary people (317). He may not have liked the people that shopped there, but he received insight of the real world. A woman that was currently at Sammy's counter was middle aged and brought Sammy no sympathy to the shoppers; he sometimes mention them as sheep. His names of the shoppers also include insight of Sammy's view of the ordinary shoppers; Sammy did not care much for others.