Growing Pains

In the short story “A & P” author John Updike introduces Sammy, a young cashier at the supermarket A & P, who becomes mesmerized by three girls who walk in to the grocery store wearing nothing but bathing suits. The story follows Sammy’s thoughts while he traces the girls’ path around the store, daydreaming about who they are and why they are in the store. While checking out, the three girls are reprimanded for their lack of clothing by the store’s manager and in a display of presumptuous chivalry, Sammy quits his job. However, when one assumes perceptions to be reality the mystery of another’s mind can prove to be disappointingly different, and therefore one should make decisions carefully before jumping to conclusions.
The story opens when one day girls in bathing suits walk in to the store to buy snacks. Sammy, the story’s narrator, discusses all of their appearances but quickly identifies the third as their leader, noticing that she walks slightly ahead of her friends, seemingly to show them how to command attention. While proceeding to ring up their purchase, Lengel, the stores’ manager, approaches the checkout line to inform the girls that their clothing, rather their lack of clothing, is inappropriate and asks them not to come back without covering themselves up. Taking offense to Lengel’s sentiments, Sammy quits his job as a cashier in hopes of impressing the girls. He rushes out to the parking lot, expecting their adulations only to find it empty. The harsh reality of not “getting the girl” and being left jobless teach Sammy about the nature of being an adult, as he says “my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.”
Sammy’s experience is a change from the usual routine that the s...

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...Sammy’s defiance is not one of celebrated liberation but rather a man with his whole life ahead battling to define himself.
The bathing suits that the girls wear are symbolic of the girl’s disregard of the socials norms of their town. Like everyone in the store, Sammy is initially drawn to the girls because they are scantily glad but he sees their bikinis as freedom and an escape from the world he finds himself living in. What he discovers is that the bathing suits have disrupted the system of rules that he’s been obeying which is underscored by Lengel’s attempt to enforce compliance upon the girls. In an attempt to join them, Sammy removes his apron and bowtie, part to a corporate uniform, in order to find his freedom from the system. However, the freedom Sammy seeks is unavailable to him, landing him alone in the parking lot with no job and a future to consider.