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Theme of the story a & p by john updike
Theme of the story a & p by john updike
A&p by John Updike Sammy character analysis
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Bathing Beauties
John Updike’s “A&P” is a short story about a nineteen year old boy during the 1960’s that has a summer job at the local A&P grocery. The main character in the story, Sammy, realizes that life isn’t always fair and that sometimes a person makes decisions that he will regret. Sammy sees that life doesn’t always go as planned when three young girls in bathing suits walk in and his manager Lengel gives them a hard time, and he comes to term with that sometimes you make bad decisions.
Sammy is astounded by three young girls that walk into his store in their bathing suits. He follows their every move as they peruse over the cookies and other goods. The first thing this typical nineteen boy recognizes is the one girl’s “can”. But then he goes on to say that this girl is one that other girls seems to think has potential but never really makes it with the guys. One girl though especially catches his eye. He starts to call her “Queenie” because of the way she carries herself and that she seems to be the leader of the pack. Sammy does nothing but watch her every move as they parade about the store. He even daydreams about going into her house with her rich family at a cocktail party. He notices everything about her and thinks there was nothing cuter than the way she pulls the money out of her top. His immature infatuation with this girl is one of the reasons Sammy makes the hasty decision to quit in the end.
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.
Sammy confronts Lengel and tells him that he didn’t have to embarrass them like that, but it does no good.
Sammy was obviously near the bottom of the class ladder, a place where he was extremely unhappy. His dead-end job at the grocery store, where lower class citizens are the prime patrons, was not a place he felt he belonged. He wanted to be a member of the family where the "father and the other men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow ties and the women were in sandals picking up herring snacks on toothpicks off a big glass plate and they were all holding drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them" (Updike 1028). Sammy realizes that Queenie comes from this sort of background, a very different one from his. When Queenie is being harassed by Lengel, Sammy sees that "she remembers her place, a place from which the crowd that runs the A & P must look pretty crummy" (Updike 1028). Queenie’s family was in the class that he envied, that he admired, that he wanted to become a part of.
As they go about their errands, Sammy observes the reactions, of the other customers, to this trio of young women. He uses the word "Sheep" to describe the store regulars, as they seem to follow one and other, in their actions and reactions. The girls, however, appear to be unique in all aspects of their beings: walking, down the isles, against the grain, going barefoot and in swim suits, amongst the properly attired clientele. They are different, and this is what catches and holds Sammy's attention. He sees them in such detail, that he can even see the queen of the bunch.
As people age, maturity and wisdom is gained through every experiences. From the time a child turns eighteen and becomes an adult, they are required to deal with the realities of the real world and learn how to handle its responsibilities. In John Updike's short story, "A&P", the protagonist Sammy, a young boy of nineteen, makes a drastic change to his life fueled by nothing more than his immaturity and desire to do what he wants and because of that, he has do deal with the consequences.
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.
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
The short story “A & P” by John Updike is about a young man’s decision to stand up for others or, in the other characters’ opinions, make a foolish decision by abandoning his responsibility. At first he believes his decision is the right thing, quitting his job for how the girls were being treated. Then when he gets outside of the store, he realizes the world he just left behind, regrets his decision, and begins to question his actions. He starts to overthink what the world has to offer him, making his worldview change from underrating to overrating. His “unsure of the world’s dangers” worldview in the beginning changes to overrating the dangers of the future ahead at the end of the story causing Sammy to change throughout “A & P”.
At the beginning of A&P, Sammy notices that three girls have walked into the store with only there bathing suits on. At first, poor Sammy cannot see the girls because he was at register 3 with his back toward the door. When they finally get into his sight, he immediately size the girls up. "The one that caught my eye first was the one in the placid green two-piece. She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs." He also gives a description of the other two girls. He says one has "a chubby berry-faces, her lips all bunched together under her nose and the tall one, with black hair that hadn't quite frizzed right, and one of these sunburns right across under the eyes and a chin that was too long--you know, the kind of girl other girls think is very "striking" and "attractive" but never quite makes it, as they very well know, which is why they like her so much." This comments illustrate his immaturity. Sammy refers to one of the girls as queen. He calls her queen because she seems to be the leader. ...
In addition of him being a manager, he is also a Sunday-school teacher. Lengel is stuffy and uptight; Sammy sees him as a prisoner of the system. The controversy between Sammy and his boss happened when Lengel verbally attacks the girls, saying, “This isn’t the beach…After this come in here with your shoulders covered. It’s our policy.” (Updike 336). He didn’t just attack Queenie, he attacked the whole group outward appearance. He also attacked them emotionally. He doesn’t know how he could have made them feel. Based on Lengel actions, it caused everyone in the store to stop and draw their attention to him and the girls’. At that moment in time, this caused the girls to become uncomfortable. Lengel spent his entire morning “Haggling with a truck full of cabbages” (Updike 335). This could be the reason why he decided to fly
Sammy, the protagonist in John Updike’s “A&P,” is a dynamic character because he reveals himself as an immature, teenage boy at the beginning of the story and changes into a mature man at the end. The way Sammy describes his place of work, the customers in the store, and his ultimate choice in the end, prove his change from an immature boy to a chivalrous man. In the beginning, he is unhappy in his place of work, rude in his description of the customers and objectification of the three girls, all of which prove his immaturity. His heroic lifestyle change in the end shows how his change of heart and attitude transform him into mature young man.
Stokesie and Lengal both symbolize lives he didn’t want to have if he stayed working at A&P. Lengal was the manager who was also a Sunday school teacher it was safe to say seeing three girls in bathing suits was not going to be okay. Lengal telling the females repeatedly that the store was not a beach. It is at this point Sammy thinks to himself why is he being so hard on queenie. That when Sammy says, “policy is what the kingpins want. What the other wants is juvenile delinquency”(Updike .22). Sammy says this because he feels like lengal only giving the girls problem about the bathing suit because it bothers him. It’s at this point Sammy decides he going to stick up for the girls. Sammy sticking up for these girls not only because he wants one to notice but because the girls represent the life he wants.Sammy while sticking up for the girls stops and thinks to himself what will he do after he quits. Sammy is afraid of what people would say about him and how it will be hard to move on and get any other jobs. In the end, Sammy does not regret his choice because he finally doing something he wants to do, getting some
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
Researching John Updike’s story, "A&P", I found many readers agreed that the main character Sammy is viewed as a hero or martyr for quitting his job at an A&P store in a northern beach town. I did, however, find that critics disagreed on why Sammy quit. Initially it appears that Sammy quits his job to impress girls who were reprimanded for wearing bathing suits in the A&P. Sammy did not ultimately quit his job to be the hero for three girls who happened to walk into this A&P. This is not just a story about a nineteen-year-old guy trying to impress a group of girls by quitting his job, but it is also a story describing in detail the day this nineteen-year-old realizes that sometimes, in the transition from boyhood to adulthood, one must take a stand and ultimately follow through with this affirmation of adulthood.
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 ...
His daily routine consists of him checking out the “sheep” at the register and watching them walk out contentedly into the real world. His grating and disparaging interpretations come from his lack of experience because he has been insulated from the rest of the world by the doors of the A&P. From the time these three girls walked into the local supermarket, Sammy criticizes and observes everything from their body weight and female features to their social status: “She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs” (Updike). His verbal commentary and callow actions toward the three girls characterize Sammy to be a male chauvinist. He views the girls as sexual objects rather than complex human beings with much more to offer than just their physical attributes. Sammy unintentionally identifies himself to be a juvenile teenager who is exceedingly concerned with the somatic aspects of the three girls, especially Queenie: “Though certainly there is an element of physical attraction in Sammy's response to Queenie, mainly his appreciation is aesthetic” (Porter). Sammy is distracted by Queenie’s beauty and continuously observes her every movement and gesture when in the A&P. The arrival of the three girls in a
Lengel, Sammys uptight dreary manager quickly notices the outfits of the three girls which sticks out like a full moon on a clear night begins to walk over and confront Queenie. Lengel proceeds to harass and embarrass Queenie and her friends about their attire. Sammy was quick to ring up the purchase and hand Queenie a bag with her food in it. Now was the time Sammy was to make his move, whether it be his hope just to catch the attention of such a thing of beauty or maybe it was his anger toward Lengel for ruing this beautiful moment that cashiers dream about . Not surprised at the girls attempt to speed out the store, Sammy quickly hollered out " I quit". The girls had heard him, but thats it, they continued to walk across the parking lot, it was just Sammy and Lengel now. Realizing what he had done, and still hoping by that some slim miracle the girls would turn around and crown him their hero. It wasnt gonna happen and Sammy knew he could now go back now and that his decision, as wrong it may have been was