A&P criticism

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Recommended: Essay about A & P by John Updike

In John Updike’s story, “A&P”, a young man named Sammy is working the checkout line at the grocery store A&P. Three girls in bathing suits walk throughout the store and he notices key differences in every single one of them. The one girl that sticks out to him the most though, he gives the name “Queenie” based on the way she carries herself and her level of attractiveness. When Sammy’s manager, Lengel, begins embarrassing the girls on the way that they are dressed, Queenie fights back that she had to pick up herring snacks for her mother. Sammy begins to make assumptions about the girl’s life and how her family is probably in a higher social class than his, based on what they drink. A spark ignites in Sammy and he wants to stand up for the girls so he quits his job. In hopes that the girls would hear what he did and become the hero of the situation, he finds that they are gone and also finds a new aspiration for the life that he lives.
Psychological criticism plays a role in Sammy when we begin to see what lies underneath him. He sees the girls of having a higher social class than h...

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