The Narrative Story In John Updike's A & P

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In the Narrative story by John Updike “A&P”, Sammy is an eighteen-year-old kid who is working at a supermarket. The story follows Sammy in what seems to be a normal day in his work environment. Him and his co-worker are sitting, staring, bored, whenever the story kicks off. Three girls walk in and this changes everything for Sammy. As he analyzes their every move and patiently waits for them to come to him. At first glance, I was shocked to find little meaning in the story at surface level, but as I began to dig deeper I found more and more things that really do make Sammy the unseen “hero”. Starting out, Sammy notices these girls walking into the store. When he first notices them, he begins to start examining the girls with immense detail. First comes the girl with the plaid top. He refers to her as chunky, wearing a plaid top, and having a nice can. He then goes on to examine the other girls that walk in, the tall, with black hair, and sunburns under here eyelids and a chin that was too long, and the third, with prima-donna legs. During these paragraphs …show more content…

Sammy is anxiously waiting for his girls to come to his register. After a while wait of him watching they finally come. He begins to check out and look at these girls at a closer distance than he was. He is blown away by the beauty that Queenie possesses and just as everything is about to be done, his manager Lengel comes over. At this point in the story things begin to go downhill fast. Lengel says to the girls that they should cover up more. With this, he embarrasses the girls as well as Sammy. The girls start to walk out, and Sammy boldly that he quits. Sammy is desperate for a new adventure, a new, more exciting life and he believes that those girls can give it to him. He leaves the store to only find that the three things he was looking forward to seeing, had left. Leaving Sammy in the parking lot with nothing but the dreary residents of the town around

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