Society is defined as a group of people living together in an ordered community and therefore, the community has rules to follow. In “A&P” by John Updike, Sammy, a teenage grocery store clerk, believes that societal rules do not apply to him. Sammy’s family is not wealthy and he is forced to work a summer job while his peers are enjoying their time off..After three girls are reprimanded for failing to follow the A&P’s dress code, Sammy impulsively quits his job to stand up for the girls. His gesture goes unnoticed, and he puts the burden on his family financially. Sammy’s immaturity and hubris prevents him from advancing in society due to his judgemental views on people, his lack of respect, and his absence of self awareness. On key aspect …show more content…
of Sammy’s hubris is the way in which he criticises everyone he meets. He constantly refers to the customers as “sheep pushing their carts down the aisle,” implying that they are all the same (Updike 261). Also, Sammy goes in depth about what he thinks about the three girls that walk in the store. He attempts to describe their personality solely based on their appearance. He titles one of the girls “Queenie” because he thinks she is the boss of the group (262). When Queenie checks out, the only remark she makes is that her “ mother asked (her) to pick up a jar of herring snacks” (264). From that, Sammy envisions Queenie’s whole lifestyle. He thinks she goes home to a place where “men (are) . . . in . . . bow ties and the women (are) . . . holding drinks . . . with olives and sprigs of mint in them,” insinuating that she comes from a ritzy background (264). His persistent judgemental comments on his customers prevents him from seeing the bigger picture. Sammy not only judges his customers, he criticizes his fellow employees. He thinks his boss, Lengle, is cheap because he was “ haggling with a truck full of cabbages,” but Lengle is really just doing his job (263). He does not realize that Lengle has more responsibility than he does, and Sammy judges his boss for trying too hard. The way in which Sammy thinks is “comic in revealing how little Sammy knows of a larger world” (Saldívar). It is laughable how narrow minded Sammy is, and his self-important views blind him to the real world. Sammy also has no respect for anyone he comes it contact to, and that hinders his ability to progress in his life. While ogling over the three girls, Sammy accidentally rings up an item twice. When confronted by the customer about his mistake, instead of apologizing, he says “ if she (was) born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem” (Updike 260). The scorn Sammy has for this woman is palpable, and the fact that he called an innocent woman a witch because she was pointing out his mistake proves that Sammy is arrogant. Sammy also has no respect for authority figures.
According to Sammy, the only difference between he and Stokesie, his superior, is that “Stokesie’s married, with two babies chalked up on his fuselage” (262). Instead of using his older, presumably wiser coworker as a mentor, Sammy decides to dismiss everything Stokesie says. Sammy also holds no regard for his boss, Lengle. The language in which Sammy uses to introduce Lengle to the reader prove this to be so. Sammy prefaces Lengle’s entrance by saying, “Everybody’s luck begins to run out” (263). After reading this, the reader gets the impression that Lengle is an unreasonable manager, but by continuing, the reader realizes that all of Lengle’s requests are practical. Sammy does not see his elders as authority figures, which in turn proves that Sammy does not know his role in society. Sammy also has a lack of awareness that impedes him. He is a hypocrite, and he does not even know it. He takes pity on the girls when McMahon, the butcher, was “sizing up their joints” (263). In other words, he was staring at the girls. The idea McMahon looking at the girls in a sexual way is disgusting to Sammy, but he is doing the same thing. Sammy “rank(s) them in their appeal” which is more abhorrent than anything McMahon has done (Saldívar). Sammy condemns his co-worker, but he fails to see the same mistake in
himself. Another mistake Sammy makes that he refuses to acknowledge is the foolish reason he quit his job. Lengle tells the girls then must follow the A&P’s dress policy, so Sammy quits, thinking he will be the girls’ hero. His act goes unnoticed. Literary critic, Rand Richards Cooper calls Sammy quitting his job a “triumphant gesture, quickly compromised ” ASK SWINDELLS AB CITATION HERE. To expound on Cooper’s thoughts, Sammy thinks that quitting his job will come with the new friendship of the three girls, but in turn, Sammy is left lonely and unemployed. Sammy’s immaturity shines brightest when he says that “once (he) begin(s) a gesture, it’s fatal not to go through with it” (Updike 266). Sammy is too proud to admit his mistake and ask for his job back. Throughout “A&P,” Sammy’s thoughts and actions act as shackles for him getting ahead in life. He does not understand people, never going beyond the surface to see what someone really is. The experience Sammy’s co-workers have is discounted because he has no respect for anyone. Sammy’s immaturity and hubris calumniate with him quitting his job, which at the time seemed like the right thing to do for him, but he “overrates the harm he has done to his prospects” (Dessner). Sammy is stuck searching for a new job in a time in American history that the unemployment rate is roughly 25%. Sammy exemplifies naive youth, who do not comprehend that one simple action now, could ruin one’s entire future.
In his short story "A & P" John Updike utilizes a 19-year-old adolescent to show us how a boy gets one step closer to adulthood. Sammy, an A & P checkout clerk, talks to the reader with blunt first person observations setting the tone of the story from the outset. The setting of the story shows us Sammy's position in life and where he really wants to be. Through the characterization of Sammy, Updike employs a simple heroic gesture to teach us that actions have consequences and we are responsible for our own actions.
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
His annotation of the “women with six children and varicose veins mapping their legs and nobody, including them, could care less” (Updike 159) and “the sheep” (Updike 162) in the checkout lines are an illustration of his everyday repetitious life working at the A&P. He compares these women to animals showing his undeniable sophomoric juvenile behavior. John Updike depicts Sammy’s character as a typical young boy who thinks he is invisible to the idea that consequences apply to him. However, Sammy is granted the harsh actuality that he will no longer be given slaps on the wrist for radical decisions. His coworker Stokesie is twenty-two, married and has two children. Generally speaking, Sammy may still have childish actions but he understands that he does not want to work at the A&P the rest of his life.
In the story, “A&P” by John Updike, the student identifies the differences of social classes between Sammy, a checkout clerk and Queenie, a wealthy girl that visit’s the store. Though not from the same class structure, Sammy is compelled to interact with the girl, however fails in doing so because she is considered privileged.
So Sammy quits his job to prove to himself, maybe to others, that he belongs in this "place." Quitting his job is his first step in achieving this goal. Sammy was obviously enthralled by the girls from the moment they walked in the A & P. He was not keen on the other two girls, but Queenie overwhelmed him. He may have even taken a liking to Queenie, but any average, nineteen-year old male would do the same after witnessing such striking beauty as is described. On the other hand, the average male would not quit a job and create such turmoil if first impression was the only cause. How interested could he actually be? In trying to figure out Queenie’s persona, he asks, "do you really think it’s a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?
Sammy's thoughts, as told to the reader in his narration, betray a deep understanding of the people he comes in contact with. When the girls walked into the store, he began to describe not only their looks, but also their attitudes and personalities without ever speaking to them. The one who held his attention was also the one he named "Queenie". On page one he says, She was the queen. She kind of led them, the other two peeking around and making their shoulders round. Sammy understood that she was the one in charge, and by saying that the other two made their shoulders round he showed that he realized their passivity was by choice; they followed her by their own wills.
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.
Sammy worked a typical boring job and what seemed to be in a typical small town. The only person in the store he really related to was Stokesie, which is the foil to Sammy, because Stokesie is married, has kids and eventually wanted to be manger one day. Something Sammy did not want to stick around and see. The customers in the store were all pretty much the same, in which Sammy did not show much emotion towards except he referred to them as “the sheep pushing their carts down the aisle” (Updike 261). It is easy to tell Sammy did not like his job, but it also seemed he had no other option, as if he was stuck in his small town and there was no way out. Then out of the blue he saw three girls wearing only their bathing suites walk in the store. Sammy noticed something different about them, like they were liberated from the conservative values of those times; they were part of a new generation. Especially Queenie, he referred to...
From the beginning of the story, it is clear that Sammy in no way likes his job, nor is he fond of the customers and people he is surrounded by each day. To Sammy, they are nothing more than "sheep" going through the motions of life. "I bet you could set off dynamite in an A&P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists and muttering Let me see, there was a third thing, began with A, asparagus, no, ah, yes, applesauce!' or whatever it was they do mutter." (Updike, 693). He view them negatively; to him they are boring and useless, living mundane and unimportant lives and it's obvious through Sammy's portrayal of them that he doesn't want to ever become one of them, nor does he want to be around them any longer.
Character can be defined as the combination of qualities or features that distinguishes one person, group, or thing from another. Authors usually embrace a distinct choice of personality on a character to make them stand out in a story. In "A & P" by John Updike, Sammy starts off as a young man discontent with his ordinary adult surroundings and moves to his need to change it. Throughout the story, Sammy describes and interprets the scenes around him, consequently revealing his own character, by which can be related through the use of Thomas Chou's Ennegram, to distinguish his personality type.
From the beginning of the story Updike "uses Sammy’s youth and unromantic descriptive powers" to show his immaturity and apparent boyish nature (Uphaus 373). We see this in the opening line of the story: "In walks three girls in nothing but bathing suits" (Updike 1026). Even the voice of Sammy is very "familiar and colloquial" (Uphaus 373). Much of the information that Sammy relays about the three girls is sexually descriptive in a nineteen-year-old boy’s way: "and a sweet broad looking can [rear] with those two crescents of white under it, where the sun never seems to hit" (Updike 1026). It is apparent that Sammy looks at the three girls who happen to walk into the A&P only as objects of lust or possibly boyish desire. Thus, on the surface it is easy to take this story as that of a boy who would do something like quit his job to "impress" these girls. It is even ...
The lives we live today encompass many moral aspects that would not have been socially acceptable fifty or more years ago. John Updike’s short story, A&P, addresses these issues of societal changes through a 1960’s teenager point of view. This teenager, Sammy, spends a great deal of his time working at a local supermarket, observing customers, and imagining where his life adventures will take him. Through symbolism and setting, Updike establishes the characters and conflicts; these, in turn, evolve Sammy from an observational, ignorant teenager, promoting opposition to changing social rules, into an adult who must face reality.
“A&P” is a short story by John Updike about a nineteen-year-old male named Sammy. Sammy lives in a small town five miles from the beach and works at a grocery store called A&P. Throughout the story Sammy reveals signs of agitation at his job. Things begin to change as he gazed his eyes on three girls that walk into the store. The A&P and the girls are important symbols in “A&P” that help reveal the conflict in the story.
But as we look deeper we can now see that he was unhappy with his position and felt as if he was better than this. When he was talking about the other workers, he is talking down on them, an example is when he talks about his coworkers’ future, “and he thinks he's going to be manager some sunny day,” as if the almighty Sammy had some sort of say in this. So in short, Sammy is standing up for himself. He doesn’t want anyone to think of him as the middle class worker that he is, but rather as a man who is rich, and fancy, and has everything he wants. That is why he quits his job because as long he is behind that register or even working under the roof of A&P he will not be pleased with the way people look and judge
...up on Stokesie like sheep, Engel explains that policy insists that shoulders must be covered. Policy is what the kingpins want. What others want is juvenile delinquency. Like a champ Sammy throws in the towel. He watched as 3 girls bucked the norm and alternately was confident enough to quit altogether. They get away from him and his feet are carrying him to the place of his residence rather than a car, reserved for higher classes. He ends with the thought how hard the world was to be to me hereafter. Sammy?s variety of verbal simulations and creations for the reader reveal the social and economic classes of basic society. The adults like animals, the attractive women- analyzed on a pedestal in full description and personification, employees get harped on too. Stoksie was a little to ambitious for a bagger, and management was regarded like the rest of the animals.