In the story A&P, we know as the story begins, Sammy is employed at A&P. He is ringing a older lady, who he describes as a "witch", groceries up. While Sammy is occupied, in walks three girls, wearing bathing suits, who catch Sammy's eye. Their attire is against the stores policy, which is not enforced, until the manager approaches them. Once the manager approaches them, we later read that Sammy quits his job. Following his first announce in him quitting, he says, "You didn't have to embarrass them" (152), which let us know, he felt the girls were embarrassed. Sammy's main point for quitting his job at A&P, in his and my opinion, is to be an "unsuspected hero" (152).
In a interview with Donald M. Murray, John Updike himself, states his opinions on the story A & P. He gives his opinion on Sammy's attraction toward Queenie, and also Sammy's decision on quitting his job. As he talked on Sammy's attraction toward Queenie, he states, "There's an element of social inequality here..." (Updike). That statement alone, opened one's eyes to notice that there is a social inequality between the two, and Sammy noticed it as Queenie began to talk. Sammy thought, "Her voice kind of startled me, the way voices do when you see the people first, coming out so flat and dumb yet kind of tony..." (151), giving the reader the impression that he knew she has some class to her. Updike goes on to give his opinion about Sammy's decision in quitting, "... A moment of manly decisiveness. For the moment, at least, he's reposing the confidence that he's doing the right thing". One may agree with Updike's opinion, because as Sammy stated himself, he wanted to be an "unsuspected hero" (152). Also, he was indeed deceived by that moment of attraction. Trying to be the girls hero, with good intentions as Updike stated, he has quit his job, which in a long run, will need.
M. Glibert Porter, another who gives his opinion on the story A&P. Porters opinion is more of a disagree with Sammy's decision. He feels Sammy's decision is not about being a hero, but about a decision he will regret for life. He goes to the section in the story when Lengel warns Sammy about his decision, "You'll feel this for the rest of your life," (152), and Porter states, "Sammy know that Lengel's prediction is true" (1157).
In “A&P”Sammy demonstrates the ability in both watching others and gathering bits of knowledge from those perceptions, however the young ladies propose to him the genuine riddle of different personalities. At the point when a client censures Sammy for an oversight, Sammy portrays the lady as a witch straight out of Salem and considers, "I know it made her day to outing me up." For Sammy, the clients at the “A&P” are very straightforward. The same holds valid for the administrator, who Sammy accepts he has completely made sense of. At the point when the young ladies enter the store, on the other hand, Sammy ponders what on earth they're considering. Despite the fact that Sammy attempts to comprehend the young ladies, particularly Queenie, and accepts that he is fruitful, his certainty is undermined by his activities toward the end of the story. His excellent motion of sensitivity for the young ladies his stopping goes unnoticed, and his inspirations are tangled and confounded. He is left with a feeling that, for all his capacity to watch and comprehend others, he should now turn his curious eye on
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
A & P takes place in a community inland that is sandy, yet near the coast. It starts out in the supermarket in which three girls in bathing suits walk in. One of these girls catches the eye of Sammy, which is working at the supermarket, Queenie. “The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid 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.” Sammy sees these girls and wants to be like them, free in a sense. As time goes on the girls finally get what they wanted and decided to check-out. They make there way to Sammy’s register where there comes Sammy’s manager, Lengel, to complain to the girls about their dress attire.
Sammy was indeed caught between the two worlds that collided one day in the A&P, and he chose to pursue the one that was not his own. He was able to do this when others were not because he understood both worlds, his attitude toward each were completely different, and his actions were drastic enough to cut him free from the bonds that his world had on him. With two paths to choose from and only one to follow, Sammy took the path less traveled in that small town by the sea. He was, to use his own analogy, a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Sammy confronts Lengel and tells him that he didn’t have to embarrass them like that, but it does no good.
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.
Sammy is stuck in that difficult transition between childhood and adulthood. He is a nineteen-year-old cashier at an A&P, the protagonist in a story with the same name. John Updike, the author of "A&P," writes from Sammy's point of view, making him not only the main character but also the first person narrator. The tone of the story is set by Sammy's attitude, which is nonchalant but frank--he calls things as he sees them. There is a hint of sarcasm in Sammy's thoughts, for he tends to make crude references to everything he observes. Updike uses this motif to develop the character of Sammy, as many of these references relate to the idea of "play."
The story begins as if it is any mundane workday at the A&P. Sammy is a typical teen, making sarcastic comparisons of the customers in the grocery store. He calls one of his customers a "witch" and says the other customers are "house slaves" and "sheep." Sammy obviously dislikes the job, but finds ways of passing the day. However, from the moment the three girls enter the A&P to their exit from the store, you can see dramatic changes in Sammy. Sammy lusts for the young girls, and nicknames the most attractive to him as “Queenie”. The young girls dressed in bathing suits fascinate him, and although he is staring at them excessively, he negatively comments on the others for doing the same. As the girls walk past the older employee, McMahon, Sammy notices how he ogled the girls and pats his mouth. Sammy appears disgusted by his gesture and begins to sympathize for the girls. “Poor kids, I began to feel sorry for them, they couldn’t help it" (Upd...
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.
Sammy’s immature behavior is predominant throughout the short story in multiple occasions. He is judgmental
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. ...
William Peden once called John Updike’s “A&P” “deftly narrated nonsense...which contains nothing more significant than a checking clerk's interest in three girls in bathing suits” (Peden). While Peden’s criticism may be harsher than necessary, it is hard to find fault with his analysis. Sammy’s tale offers little more than insight into an egocentric and self-motivated mind, and while Updike may disagree with that conclusion, a close reading of the text offers significant evidence to support this theory. In “An Interview with John Updike”, Updike describes how Sammy quit as a “feminist protest” (153). However, I would argue that Sammy’s act of defiance was selfishly motivated and represents his inner struggle with his social class as demonstrated through his contempt for those around him and his self-motivated actions.
In John Updike's short story, "A & P," the main character, Sammy, is a cashier at a small grocery store. He is seen by many to be a sexist pig, describing in detail how he sees the three girls that walk in to the store. Sammy is in fact a sexist pig by what he says about them. With evidence and quotes from the story, Sammy can be determined to be a sexist pig. He describes the first girl he sees walking in the store as "a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it..." (421). Although the comment was kept to himself, in mind it is a sexist comment. Though the girl was in a bathing suit and there was no beach around, she probably wasn't trying to get the attention of young guys. She was just there to "pick up a jar of herring snacks" (423). Describing the girl's "can" (421), meaning her backside, gives Sammy some credit of being a sexist pig. Sammy slowly begins to see the other two girls follow the first. He notices not only what they're wearing, but what the little clothing that they have on covers up. "This clean bare plane of the top of her chest down from the shoulder bones like a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light" (421). With this quote, he is describing how the bathing suit was slipping off the girl, but in a more demeaning manner. "With the straps pushed off, there was nothing between the top of the suit and top of her head except just her..." (421). Sammy describes that he just sees the girl, a one-nighter type. He doesn't see that she's a human, but just a plaything. One other quote/thought that Sammy has while these girls (whom remain nameless throughout the story), is when the one he calls Queeny takes her money from "the hollow at the center of her nubbled pink top" (423). He begins to get excited as he uncreases the bill as "it just having come from between the two smoothest scoops of vanilla [he] had ever known there were" (424). Sammy seems to be more of a sexist pig, as the reader proceeds through the story.
The beginning of “A & P” starts with the main character, Sammy, at work when three girls in nothing but bathing suits walks in. According to Lawrence Dessner, the A & P check out counter showed Sammy a sample of insult and indignity of ordinary people (317). He may not have liked the people that shopped there, but he received insight of the real world. A woman that was currently at Sammy's counter was middle aged and brought Sammy no sympathy to the shoppers; he sometimes mention them as sheep. His names of the shoppers also include insight of Sammy's view of the ordinary shoppers; Sammy did not care much for others.
John Updike's A&P provides numerous perspectives for critical interpretation. His descriptive metaphors and underlying sexual tones are just the tip of the iceberg. A gender analysis could be drawn from the initial outline of the story and Sammy's chauvinism towards the female. Further reading opens up a formalist and biographical perspective to the critic. After several readings I began seeing the Marxist perspective on the surreal environment of A&P. The economic and social differences are evident through Sammy's storytelling techniques and even further open up a biographical look at Updike's own view's and opinions. According to an essay posted on the internet Updike was a womanizer in his own era and displayed boyish immaturity into his adulthood. A second analysis of this story roots more from a reader-response/formalist view. Although Sammy centered his dramatization around three young females, more specifically the Queen of the trio, it was a poignant detailed head to toe description of scene. I'll touch on that later.