Sammy Quitting His Job

In John Updike’s 1959 short story “A&P”, the protagonist, Sammy, makes an abrupt decision to quit his job as a cashier after his boss, Lengel, embarrasses a group of girls for being indecently dressed. Although the decision was unplanned, Updike makes it a point to inform the audience about Sammy’s negative and unpleasant outlook on his occupation. To do this, he illustrates some of the incidents that may have contributed to Sammy quitting his job, most of which are rather ironic and unusual. Sammy quit his job because he did not view it as a permanent occupation, he wanted to make an independent decision without the guidance of his parents, and he wanted to impress the group of girls that had been embarrassed by Lengel due to their immodest

This is shown in the way that he analyses his coworker Stokesie. For example, Sammie describes Stokesie as a “responsible married man finding his voice” (737), who “thinks he is going to be manager some sunny day, maybe in 1990” (737). Since this short story was published in 1959, 1990 was viewed as a very long time away, therefore applying that Stokesie will probably never move up to a management position, and neither will Sammy. Sammy knows he will never evolve at the A&P and this was a major reason he quit his job. He knew it was not permanent, so he did not take it too

This is shown when Sammy informs Lengel that he is quitting his job and Lengel replies that he does not want Sammy to disappoint his mom and dad (740). Another example of this is shown after Sammy quits his job and he is walking away from the A&P in his shirt that his mother had ironed for him the night before (740). This informs the reader that Sammy is still living at home with his parents and depends heavily on them, to the point where he doesn’t even iron his own clothes. He mentions that “once you begin a gesture it is fatal not to go through with it” (740), meaning that since he started this, he would have to finish it. He has finally made a decision on his own, and although he does feel empowered, he realizes that his life is about to get a lot harder