Society is defined as a group of people living together in an ordered community and therefore, the community has rules to follow. In “A&P” by John Updike, Sammy, a teenage grocery store clerk, believes that societal rules do not apply to him. Sammy’s family is not wealthy and he is forced to work a summer job while his peers are enjoying their time off..After three girls are reprimanded for failing to follow the A&P’s dress code, Sammy impulsively quits his job to stand up for the girls. His gesture goes unnoticed, and he puts the burden on his family financially. Sammy’s immaturity and hubris prevents him from advancing in society due to his judgemental views on people, his lack of respect, and his absence of self awareness. On key aspect …show more content…
According to Sammy, the only difference between he and Stokesie, his superior, is that “Stokesie’s married, with two babies chalked up on his fuselage” (262). Instead of using his older, presumably wiser coworker as a mentor, Sammy decides to dismiss everything Stokesie says. Sammy also holds no regard for his boss, Lengle. The language in which Sammy uses to introduce Lengle to the reader prove this to be so. Sammy prefaces Lengle’s entrance by saying, “Everybody’s luck begins to run out” (263). After reading this, the reader gets the impression that Lengle is an unreasonable manager, but by continuing, the reader realizes that all of Lengle’s requests are practical. Sammy does not see his elders as authority figures, which in turn proves that Sammy does not know his role in society. Sammy also has a lack of awareness that impedes him. He is a hypocrite, and he does not even know it. He takes pity on the girls when McMahon, the butcher, was “sizing up their joints” (263). In other words, he was staring at the girls. The idea McMahon looking at the girls in a sexual way is disgusting to Sammy, but he is doing the same thing. Sammy “rank(s) them in their appeal” which is more abhorrent than anything McMahon has done (Saldívar). Sammy condemns his co-worker, but he fails to see the same mistake in
Character can be defined as the combination of qualities or features that distinguishes one person, group, or thing from another. Authors usually embrace a distinct choice of personality on a character to make them stand out in a story. In "A & P" by John Updike, Sammy starts off as a young man discontent with his ordinary adult surroundings and moves to his need to change it. Throughout the story, Sammy describes and interprets the scenes around him, consequently revealing his own character, by which can be related through the use of Thomas Chou's Ennegram, to distinguish his personality type.
Sammy’s point of view of conformity changes from passive to active which shows the growth of his character. Updike chooses a 19-year-old teenager as the first narrator. As a teenager, Sammy’s personal value is still developing and he is not fully shaped by the conformity, which suggests his quitting later in the story. Although Sammy’s perspective is unreliable since his thoughts are limited by his age, he gives readers a naiver perspective of the society. He simply considers the customers as “sheep” or followers when he works in A&P, such as: “The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle” (748). However, before he saw the girls, he was part of the conformity. He silently mocks the people being conservative, but does not show any rebuke against
This story represents a coming-of-age for Sammy. Though it takes place over the period of a few minutes, it represents a much larger process of maturation. From the time the girls enter the grocery store, to the moment they leave, you can see changes in Sammy. At first, he sees only the physicality of the girls: how they look and what they are wearing, seem to be his only observations. As the story progresses, he notices the interactions between the girls, and he even determines the hierarchy of the small dynamic. He observes their actions and how they affect the other patrons of the business. Rather, how the other people view the girl's actions. His thought process is maturing and he starts to see things as an adult might see them.
From the beginning of the story, it is clear that Sammy in no way likes his job, nor is he fond of the customers and people he is surrounded by each day. To Sammy, they are nothing more than "sheep" going through the motions of life. "I bet you could set off dynamite in an A&P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists and muttering Let me see, there was a third thing, began with A, asparagus, no, ah, yes, applesauce!' or whatever it was they do mutter." (Updike, 693). He view them negatively; to him they are boring and useless, living mundane and unimportant lives and it's obvious through Sammy's portrayal of them that he doesn't want to ever become one of them, nor does he want to be around them any longer.
The lives we live today encompass many moral aspects that would not have been socially acceptable fifty or more years ago. John Updike’s short story, A&P, addresses these issues of societal changes through a 1960’s teenager point of view. This teenager, Sammy, spends a great deal of his time working at a local supermarket, observing customers, and imagining where his life adventures will take him. Through symbolism and setting, Updike establishes the characters and conflicts; these, in turn, evolve Sammy from an observational, ignorant teenager, promoting opposition to changing social rules, into an adult who must face reality.
In his short story "A & P" John Updike utilizes a 19-year-old adolescent to show us how a boy gets one step closer to adulthood. Sammy, an A & P checkout clerk, talks to the reader with blunt first person observations setting the tone of the story from the outset. The setting of the story shows us Sammy's position in life and where he really wants to be. Through the characterization of Sammy, Updike employs a simple heroic gesture to teach us that actions have consequences and we are responsible for our own actions.
“A&P” is a short story by John Updike about a nineteen-year-old male named Sammy. Sammy lives in a small town five miles from the beach and works at a grocery store called A&P. Throughout the story Sammy reveals signs of agitation at his job. Things begin to change as he gazed his eyes on three girls that walk into the store. The A&P and the girls are important symbols in “A&P” that help reveal the conflict in the story.
We can see that Sammy is poor from the part where he talks about his idea to be with Queenie, enjoying everything she has.Shortly after he says that he is quitting the job,his manager tells him:"You'll feel this for the rest of your life." (69).We can see Lengel's opinion on his decision as he thinks that he needs the job and that his parents will be really disappointed with him,so this is definitely one negative side of his decision.Even though Sammy shows us that he has some plans for the future,I think that his decision was based more on the wish to get Queenie
He criticizes his family and their background when he says, “when my parents have somebody over they get lemonade and if it’s a real racy affair, Schlitz in tall glasses with ‘They’ll do it every time’ cartoons stenciled on.” Sammy desires to move from a blue collar to a white collar family to differentiate him from his family. He shows his growing maturity when he says, “the girls who’d blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say ‘I quit’ to Lengal quick enough for them to hear, hoping they’ll stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero.” He wants to be noticed by the girls for his selfless act of quitting his job for them. His plan does not work though, and the girls leave him to face Lengal alone. Lengal confronts Sammy and says, “Sammy, you don’t want to do this to your mom and dad.” Sammy ponders Lengal’s comment and thinks to himself, “It’s true, I don’t. But it seems to me that once you begin a gesture it’s fatal not to go through with it.” Sammy has begun to reach maturity and now wants to make his own decisions concerning his future and how he spends
On the other hand Sammy feels that Lengel was wrong for his actions and tells him that he is quitting. In this he is trying to take up for the girls.
But as we look deeper we can now see that he was unhappy with his position and felt as if he was better than this. When he was talking about the other workers, he is talking down on them, an example is when he talks about his coworkers’ future, “and he thinks he's going to be manager some sunny day,” as if the almighty Sammy had some sort of say in this. So in short, Sammy is standing up for himself. He doesn’t want anyone to think of him as the middle class worker that he is, but rather as a man who is rich, and fancy, and has everything he wants. That is why he quits his job because as long he is behind that register or even working under the roof of A&P he will not be pleased with the way people look and judge
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
From the beginning of the story Updike "uses Sammy’s youth and unromantic descriptive powers" to show his immaturity and apparent boyish nature (Uphaus 373). We see this in the opening line of the story: "In walks three girls in nothing but bathing suits" (Updike 1026). Even the voice of Sammy is very "familiar and colloquial" (Uphaus 373). Much of the information that Sammy relays about the three girls is sexually descriptive in a nineteen-year-old boy’s way: "and a sweet broad looking can [rear] with those two crescents of white under it, where the sun never seems to hit" (Updike 1026). It is apparent that Sammy looks at the three girls who happen to walk into the A&P only as objects of lust or possibly boyish desire. Thus, on the surface it is easy to take this story as that of a boy who would do something like quit his job to "impress" these girls. It is even ...
Sammy worked a typical boring job and what seemed to be in a typical small town. The only person in the store he really related to was Stokesie, which is the foil to Sammy, because Stokesie is married, has kids and eventually wanted to be manger one day. Something Sammy did not want to stick around and see. The customers in the store were all pretty much the same, in which Sammy did not show much emotion towards except he referred to them as “the sheep pushing their carts down the aisle” (Updike 261). It is easy to tell Sammy did not like his job, but it also seemed he had no other option, as if he was stuck in his small town and there was no way out. Then out of the blue he saw three girls wearing only their bathing suites walk in the store. Sammy noticed something different about them, like they were liberated from the conservative values of those times; they were part of a new generation. Especially Queenie, he referred to...
...up on Stokesie like sheep, Engel explains that policy insists that shoulders must be covered. Policy is what the kingpins want. What others want is juvenile delinquency. Like a champ Sammy throws in the towel. He watched as 3 girls bucked the norm and alternately was confident enough to quit altogether. They get away from him and his feet are carrying him to the place of his residence rather than a car, reserved for higher classes. He ends with the thought how hard the world was to be to me hereafter. Sammy?s variety of verbal simulations and creations for the reader reveal the social and economic classes of basic society. The adults like animals, the attractive women- analyzed on a pedestal in full description and personification, employees get harped on too. Stoksie was a little to ambitious for a bagger, and management was regarded like the rest of the animals.