Social Acceptance In John Updike's A & P

In the short story A & P, John Updike shows how social acceptance can lead to a negative outcome, which we have seen many times before. Updike tells a story about a grocery store in a small town in New England called A & P. Sammy, being one of the main characters in the story, who is also the narrator, is shown discussing about his day to day life at the store. He mainly discusses one day in particular. A group of 3 girls walks into the store and Sammy is infatuated with them. Sammy is shown flaunting/talking about the girls while trying to depict how the girl’s personalities are. By the end of the story Sammy makes a decision in an act of “chivalry” towards the girls but ends up regretting the decision he decided to make. Sammy actions have

an underlying truth. The consequences of Sammy’s actions and placing social acceptance before anything else leads to nothing but negative outcomes.
Updike writes the whole story in first person narration. It shows Sammy’s thoughts and his take on things and I belief has no correlation with the authors ideas or beliefs at all. The story immediately starts out by saying “In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits” (239). This already shows the one thing that catches his eye, along with all the other men in the store. This shows some what of a sexual desire Sammy has towards the girls. The swimsuits the girls have on don’t just represent clothing but a message the girls are trying to convey. The clothing represent power and how easy it is to get a man’s attention but also a way to show that they don’t care about the rules society made up during that certain time period.
Sammy goes in to great detail about all their appearances and attitudes. When Sammy becomes distracted by the girls he accidentally scans a costumer’s item twice causing her to raise hell. “I stood there with my hand over the box of Hi Ho crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not. I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell. She’s one of those cash register watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day to trip me up. She’d been watching cash registers for fifty years and probably never seen a mistake before. By the time I got her feathers smoothed and her goodies into a bag she gives me a little snort in passing, if she’d been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem” (239). Sammy thinks he has easily figured out the women. He feels as if he possesses the gift of observation. During the conversation between Stokesie’s and Sammy, Sammy says “Stokesie’s married, with two babies chalked up on his fuselage already, but as far as I can tell that’s the only difference. He’s twenty-two, and I was nineteen this April” (240). The author included their ages and the fact that Stokesie was married is because Sammy questions his current situation in life. He feels that his coworker has some what of his life together. He is already married and has children, but Sammy does not. He is only eighteen years old, doesn’t have a significant other, still stays with his parents, and works at a grocery store. By observing/profiling everyone is the store, I believe that is somewhat of an escape from reality and because he does not want to observe and put the focus on himself and his own life.
Close to the end of the story this is really where Sammy has the epiphany about his life.

As the girls are getting their items checked out by Sammy this is when Lengel comes out and see’s how the girls are dressed. “Girls this isn’t the beach” (241). This line shows that Lengel is more of the authority figure and doesn’t have the same mind set as Sammy does. Lengel then say to the girls “we want you decently dressed when you come in here” (242). Queenie quickly responds to this by saying “we are decent” (242). I believe she said this because by her being quiet meant that she was weak. This also shows that queenie is more of the “head girl” of the group because she was the only one that answered. Sammy then jumps in and say’s “I quit. To Lengel loud enough for the to hear me hoping they will stop and watch me” (242). He wanted the girls to watch him because he wanted to be “One who shows great courage” (“Hero”). “I pull the bow on my apron and start shrugging it off my shoulders” (242). “I look around for my girls, but they’re gone, of course” (242). I think Sammy refers the girls as “My Girls” because he wants to show that he is kind of like them in a way and that he understands them. Sammy also notices that the girls have left, and did not even care notice his attempt to be a “Gallant or distinguished gentlemen” (Britannica

2016).
“Looking back in the big windows, over the bags of peat moss and aluminum lawn furniture stacked on the pavement, I could see Lengel in my place in the slot, checking the sheep through. His face was dark gray and his back stiff as if he’d just had an injection of iron, and my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going be to me hereafter” (243). In conclusion, Sammy notices that what he had done was a mistake. He felt as if he wasted his time trying to impress some random girls that didn’t even care about him at all. He finally realizes how easy it is for someone to take your place, like when Lengel took Sammy’s place right after he quit. Life is going to be hard no matter what he decides to do. He was trying so badly to be accepted by the girls and observe what other people were like but instead should have been