John Updike’s “A&P” is a popular and influential short story. “A&P” takes place during the early 1960’s in a small Massachusetts town north of Boston at a small town supermarket. The story focuses around Sammy, a nineteen year old cashier at the local A&P, and also the story’s narrator. The story looks at the differences between the individual versus the collective, youth and age, conservation versus liberalism, consumer culture, the working class versus the upper class and men versus women. The story contains a brief but very significant event for Sammy, when three teenage girls wearing nothing but bikinis walk into the grocery store where he works. It is when Lengel, Sammy’s manager, criticizes the girls for the way they are dressed that …show more content…
But he has an unreliable perspective like many teenage narrators. Even though Sammy’s perspective is limited it does pave a path for some major growth on his part. It shows he is willing to think and act differently than the people around him. Part of the understanding of “A&P” comes from Sammy as the narrator. Throughout the story one could notice how Sammy skips back and forth between present and past tense. The story’s first sentence states,” In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits.” This beginning to the story is present tense, like Sammy is observing things as they happen. From then on though he switches between past and present tense, giving the reader the idea he has no idea what is to come. However somewhere in the middle of the story Sammy says “Now here comes the sad part […].” So Sammy does know how the story goes and he is telling, writing, or thinking about it sometime afterwards. We don’t know for sure though if Sammy has written the story down but given the following example the reader may think Sammy has written the story …show more content…
He quits his job. Even though Lengel tries to discourage Sammy and talk him out of it by saying, “Sammy, you don’t want to do this to your mom and dad.” Because Sammy’s parents got Sammy that clerk job at the A&P, he knows it will affect his parents. Sammy is taking the first step of leaving his adolescence behind, and this always has an effect on parents. It’s hard for any parent to let their kids go and grow into men and women. Sammy views quitting his job as a major step towards becoming an adult and not conforming to his surroundings. His quitting is his escape. “A&P” ends outside the supermarket in the parking lot. Sammy has just quit his job to take a stand against store policies everywhere, or more specifically he has quit to take a stand against conformity. The short story ends on more of a sad note versus the upbeat beginning. For instance, Sammy is now outside of the supermarket looking in. Though he walked out on his own free will, it has to be upsetting to no longer be a part of something he was just a few moment ago. What may contribute most to the storys sad ending is the observation of Lengel in the storys last
John Updike gives the reader an inside look into the adolescent mind of Sammy, which give the reader a better understanding of his personality. All of these literary devices enhance the meanings of the story's symbols as the boy's personality and view of his world move from content, to admiration, to resignation. Sammy, the first person narrator, plays an essential role in portraying an in depth viewpoint of the story. His portrayal of a typical teen working in a dead-end job, his thoughts and feelings are very obvious in the story "A & P."
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.
Interpretation of A & P This story takes place in 1961, in a small New England town's A&P grocery store. Sammy, the narrator, is introduced as a grocery checker and an observer of the store's patrons. He finds himself fascinated by a particular group of girls. Just in from the beach and still in their bathing suits, they are a stark contrast, to the otherwise plain store interior.
A reader can tell that Sammy likes the main girl that he gives the nickname “Queenie” to. He thinks that she is the leader of the girls and also that she is the prettiest. The way that Sammy thinks about these girls really puts the story into perspective. A person would think that a few girls going into a grocery store to grab some snacks is just a part of life, but to hear it in the words of Sammy, it seems quite fascinating. At one point a reader might think of Sammy as sexist, because in his own words, “You never know for sure how girls’ minds work (do you really think it’s a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?)[…] (370). All in all, this is just the way that Sammy’s’ mind works; it is how he thinks about people. This is what makes it be known that he a younger man not from the current
Sammy is a 19-year-old boy conveying a cocky but cute male attitude. He describes three girls entering the A & P, setting the tone of the story. "In walk these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. There was this chunky one, with the two piece-it was bright green and the seams on the bra were still sharp and her belly was still pretty pale...there was this one, with one of those chubby berry-faces, the lips all bunched together under her nose, this one, and a tall one, with black hair that hadn't quite frizzed righ...
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.
In "A&P" Sammy changes from an immature teenager to a person who takes a stand for what he believes is wrong which is reflected in Sammy's words and actions. This paper is composed of three paragraphs. The first paragraph deals with the immature Sammy, the second concentrates on Sammy's beginning his maturing process, and the last focuses on his decision to take a stand no matter what the consequences are.
In, “A&P,” Updike depicts an unusual day for Sammy working in the A&P store. Sammy’s days are usually mundane but his day is changed when a group of scantily dressed girls walk into the store and they leave an everlasting influence on his life. Updike’s demonstrates these events through colloquial language and symbolism, allowing the reader to connect with Sammy and see his growth as a character.
The main character in John Updike's short story “A&P” is Sammy. The story's first-person context gives the reader a unique insight toward the main character's own feelings and choices, as well as the reasons for the choices. The reader is allowed to closely observe Sammy's observations and first impressions of the three girls who come to the grocery store on a summer afternoon in the early 1960s. In order to understand this short story, one must first recognize the social climate of the era, the age of the main character, and the temptation this individual faces.
Sammy, the protagonist in John Updike’s “A&P,” is a dynamic character because he reveals himself as an immature, teenage boy at the beginning of the story and changes into a mature man at the end. The way Sammy describes his place of work, the customers in the store, and his ultimate choice in the end, prove his change from an immature boy to a chivalrous man. In the beginning, he is unhappy in his place of work, rude in his description of the customers and objectification of the three girls, all of which prove his immaturity. His heroic lifestyle change in the end shows how his change of heart and attitude transform him into mature young man.
John Updike’s “A&P” is a short story about a nineteen year old boy during the 1960’s that has a summer job at the local A&P grocery. The main character in the story, Sammy, realizes that life isn’t always fair and that sometimes a person makes decisions that he will regret. Sammy sees that life doesn’t always go as planned when three young girls in bathing suits walk in and his manager Lengel gives them a hard time, and he comes to term with that sometimes you make bad decisions.
Sammy is no longer a child, but much of what he observes he describes as the play that he did as a child. The way he thinks can also be described as childlike play, in terms of his being disrespectful and needing to show off. Updike demonstrates, however, that Sammy desires to be thought of as an adult, and many of his references are to the type of play that adults might engage in. Sammy, like many adults, does not think in what is considered an adult manner, but Updike uses the plot's climax and conclusion to show that Sammy has learned a tough lesson that will speed up his transition into adulthood.
The story unfolds when, “Lengel, the store’s manager” (2191) confronts the girls because they are dressed inappropriately. To Sammy, it is a moment of embarrassment and in defiance he quits his job. The student suggests that in quitting, “Sammy challenges social inequality and is a person who is trying to
Researching John Updike’s story, "A&P", I found many readers agreed that the main character Sammy is viewed as a hero or martyr for quitting his job at an A&P store in a northern beach town. I did, however, find that critics disagreed on why Sammy quit. Initially it appears that Sammy quits his job to impress girls who were reprimanded for wearing bathing suits in the A&P. Sammy did not ultimately quit his job to be the hero for three girls who happened to walk into this A&P. This is not just a story about a nineteen-year-old guy trying to impress a group of girls by quitting his job, but it is also a story describing in detail the day this nineteen-year-old realizes that sometimes, in the transition from boyhood to adulthood, one must take a stand and ultimately follow through with this affirmation of adulthood.
...of life. He is no longer buying the old ideas, but, instead, identifying with the "pee-pul," not the store. By removing his apron, shrugging it off his shoulder just as Queenie did with her bathing suit, Sammy severs his ties to the store and also solidifies his identification with Queenie. Finalizing his resignation, he exits the store into the "sunshine skating," a new natural light with no pattern, in the parking lot. He now looks back at the A&P and understands the risk he has taken by leaving the safety that his parents had reserved for him at the store.