Trying to be a hero doesn't always workout. In the story "A+P," Sammy is anything except for heroic. He judges the girls that walk around the store by the way they look, and he calls the customers names. By the end of the story, Sammy believes that he is doing something heroic when he's really not. Sammy begins judging the girls once they walk into the store. First, Sammy is very judgemental. While the three girls walk around the store, Sammy watches them, and he calls them different names by the way that they look. He says, "There was this chunky one," and "A tall one, with black hair." Then he says, "The third one, that wasn't quite so tall. She was the queen." Just by the way that each of the girls look, he judges them on how they look. …show more content…
Second, Sammy calls the customers of the store names just like he did with the girls.
He judged the customers all together instead of separate. While the customers were walking around the store shopping, Sammy calls them house slaves. As the the customers began checking out, and Lengel was arguing with the girls; Sammy says the customers were, "Sheep, seeing a scene, they had all bunched up on Stokesie." Even though Sammy judges everyone in the store, what he does is not heroic. Lastly, Sammy tried to be heroic, but it didn't work out quite so well. While Lengel was arguing with the girls, Sammy kept his mouth shut. When the girls were about to walk out of the store, Sammy told Lengel, "I quit." He hoped that the girls would hear him, but they just kept walking. The only reason Sammy quit was because he believed Lengel embarrassed the girls. Once Sammy walked out of the store, he hoped the girls would be waiting for him, but they were gone. In the end, Sammy quit for no reason, and now he doesn't have a job. Sammy tried to stand up for the girls, but everything just went wrong. He lost his job trying to do the right thing. It wasn't fair to the girls for Lengel to embarrass them, but Sammy quit his job for them. Once he walked out of the store, he hoped that the girls would be there waiting on their "hero," but they had already
left. In conclusion, Sammy tried to be heroic, but he was actually a hero for no one. In the beginning of the story, Sammy judged the girls; in the end, he tried to stand up for them. He also judged the customers just like he did with the girls. When he tried to be heroic, he quit his job for no reason. Sammy hoped the girls would be outside of the store waiting on him, but they had already left by the time he got outside. Once everything was over, Sammy was left without a job and without the girls.
But life is not a fairytale. Standing there lonely, having no job is our Sammy. This is when Sam realizes his path, the true way to become mature. The moment when “Lengel sighs and begins to look very patient:” Sammy, you don’t want to do this to your mom and dad” (Updike) hold him back a little bit, we can feel the regret in his heart. But he cannot go back anymore, decision has been made. He gives up his last chance; from now on, he’s on his own. Sammy finally understands that it is responsible behavior but not playing “adult-like” game that will make him a true
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
...s that Sammy is taking a stand and that Lengel cannot change his mind about quitting. When Sammy left the store, the girls where long gone. "His face was dark gray and his back stiff, as if he's just had an injection of iron, and my stomach kind of felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter." This quote illustrates that Sammy knows that his parents will not like the fact that he quit, but he realizes that he has to take charge with his life, and make his own chooses without being afraid of what his parents would think. He is very happy that he had taken a stand, and he let no one change it.
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.
The transition from childhood to adulthood is not only a physical challenge but, psychological and socially exhausting. John Updike who wrote “A & P” recognized this and used it characterize the main character. The protagonist Sammy was developed around the concept of the journey into adulthood. Sammy is a nineteen years old boy who works at the A&P grocery store in a small New England town. It is not until three young girls walk into the store in just their bathing suits that Sammy is faced with the realization that he undoubtedly has to face the harsh truth of growing up.
The story unfolds when, “Lengel, the store’s manager” (2191) confronts the girls because they are dressed inappropriately. To Sammy, it is a moment of embarrassment and in defiance he quits his job. The student suggests that in quitting, “Sammy challenges social inequality and is a person who is trying to
Sammy observes their movements and gestures, up until the time of checkout. At which point, they are confronted by the store manager and chastised for their unacceptable appearance. He believes their attire is indecent. Sammy, feeling that the managerial display was unnecessary and unduly embarrassing for the girls, decides to quit his position as checker. Though he knows that his decision may be hasty, he knows that he has to follow through and he can never go back.
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...
On the other hand Sammy feels that Lengel was wrong for his actions and tells him that he is quitting. In this he is trying to take up for the girls.
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.
The possible reasons for Sammy quitting his job are numerous: Sammy might have just used the treatment of the girls as an excuse, or maybe Lengel did actually upset him that much. It is possible that Sammy did initially quit to impress the girls and be their hero. Susan Uphaus says, "Sammy’s quitting has been described as the reflex of the still uncommitted, of the youth still capable of the grand gesture because he has
The story begins through Sammy, the narrator, working at the local A&P supermarket. He not...
The clients of Sammy’s workplace are described as having “Six children”(Updike 645) with “Veracious vein mapping their legs”(Updike 645) and ”haven 't seen the ocean in twenty years”(Updike 645). Through the details Sammy provides about the clients explains that Sammy is starved from the sight of a girl his age, and upon the first sight of a girl nearing his age, he is instantly attracted to her. The three girls in the store are Sammy’s rescue from the small tiresome town. The final point that proves Sammy’s heroic action are because of his lust for the girls is the theme of the whole short
These three girls were wearing bathing suites that caught the attention of everyone in the store. In this small town such apparel is unacceptable to the residents. Sammy observes their bathing suites, their hair, and their bodies as they walk through the store. He becomes lustful of the leader of the girls and gives her the nickname “Queenie”. Sammy goes into detail feeling faint describing her breast like two smooth scoops of vanilla. The girls flow through the store going against the normal traffic to get a jar of herring snacks. Queenie leading the way arrives at Sammy’s register to check
There is another type of hero that almost no one is aware of. In the poorest areas of the country, live mostly minorities and other ethic background. All their lives they’ve been expected to work harder and expected not succeed in life. Some individuals living in poverty with a determination to succeed work hard all of their lives to become what everybody doubted they could. Escaping the crime, drugs, and prostitution is enough to escape hell, even if they don’t go to college. Despite of their financial problems, drug and crime surroundings, or difficulties in the language skills, their desire to triumph fuels their persistence. Those who make it to success are the few living examples of the purest form of hero anyone can be. They are not only their own heroes but also the heroes of the poor children who dream of becoming like them someday.