Personal Struggle In John Updike's A & P

In the story, “A&P” by John Updike has hidden personal struggles that Sammy deals with throughout the story. Specifically, Sammy coming to age, letting his feeling get the best of him, and personally dealing with social conflicts. The first personal struggle is Sammy coming to age. Transitioning from boyhood to adulthood can prove to be difficult, especially for a nineteen-year-old boy. We see this struggle as Sammy handles the situation with Lengal and the three girls when they are ready to check out. In the story, Sammy shows the reader his lack of maturity by stating, “I quit” to Lengal in hopes that the girls hear him as they leave. This shows he is not thinking about the consequences of showing off. Then, Sammy justifies his decision to quit when he says, “It seems to me that once you begin a gesture it’s fatal not to go through with it.” This is him taking consequences for his actions. He knows that the choice he made was immature, but instead of acting like it did not happen he bites the bullet and moves on with his life. Sammy also knows Lengel is right when he says, …show more content…

We can see the social struggle with Sammy when he introduces the reader to Queenie. He could have just called her the ringleader, the not quite tall one, or the girl in the pink. When Sammy says, “in her bare feet that much, putting down her heels and then letting the weight move along to her toes as if she was testing the floor with every step” he is inferring that she is testing to is if it is up to her standards. Sammy wonder this because to him all floors are the same, because he walks on the same one in the store. At the end of the story we see how Sammy depicts what her house life is compared to his own. Just by the different in liquor, the family drink shows a difference in class. This issue never is solved because like “Policy is what the kingpins want.” The policy referring to the rich get richer the poor get