Teenagers In John Updike's A & P

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Crazed hormonal teenagers are a breed among men that truly examines anything that excites them with intense detail. Sammy a hormone crazed teenager working in an A&P supermarket uses his exceptional attention to detail to examine 3 girls that come into his supermarket. Although Sammy is very observant, imaginative, even intelligent he makes a decision that becomes a life lesson. Sammy is chivalrous, alert, courageous, and impulsive through the actions he displays at the store he quickly becomes more mature. Working a checkout line at a supermarket is not the liveliest thing for a teenager, but when three mystifying teenage girls walk through Sammy is finally happy he snaps his attention to them. An example of his alertness and his keen attention to detail, is the way he describes them. His choice of words when describing the ringleader of the group his nickname for her -Queenie- because of the way she carried herself: “She didn’t look around, not this queen, she just walked straight on slowly, on these white prima-donna legs”. (Updike 131) This is significant because he perceives her as the Queen and by the end he looks like the court jester. Maturity in this context comes through his passage from his boyhood to adolescence, he …show more content…

So the lesson is to make decisions that are made on an even keel. Sammy’s journey to becoming more of a young adult is a reminder that thinking through life altering decisions is a big priority where Sammy will never forget to do. Although quitting a job for a group of girls is not that important the principle of not letting other people interfere with how you run your life. Immaturity is the way some readers have interpreted Sammy, but it’s quite on the contrary. Society has taught us that we learn from our mistakes, some mistakes are life altering and others are used to glean information for use in the

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