When the store manager approaches Sammy’s lane, he felt this was his big chance to impress queenie. The store manager visit Sammy’s lane and the first thing he says "Girls, this isn’t the beach," (Updike). Queenie responds to the store manager “lengel” that her mother sent her to buy her some groceries. However, queenie felt that since her mother sent her it is okay coming to the store with a bathing suit on. While Lengel and Queenie are arguing, Sammy pictures himself hanging out with her.
The interactions Sammy has during this one day at the A&P give the reader a look on Updike’s thoughts on freedom, changes, and growth in a young man's life. Sammy is the protagonist of the story. He is working at his common job, with common co-workers, at a common store. One day while he is working, three girls wearing bathing suits come into the store. After dismissing the first two as unattractive, he focuses his attention on a girl he decides to call “Queenie”.
You can tell in the beginning of the story when the line “In walks three girls in nothing but bathing suits”. (Updike) He observes every little thing about these three girls from their tan lines to their bathing suits. After the girls walk in he is checking out one of the regular “cash-register-watchers” and he is so focused on the girls that he rings an item up twice and she yells at him. (Updike) From when the girls walk in till they come up to check out with one item Sammy is constantly looking and thinking about Queenie. Unlike his manager Lengel, he finds the girls a distraction from his everyday job where Lengel finds them arrogant for walking in to his grocery store with no shoes and only their bathing suites.
Edgar Doyet 10A English with Mrs. Creede Rewrite essay 01/27/2015 A&P close reading A&P is a popular and well-written short story by John Updike. It looks at middle-class life and values. It also talks about youth and age, consumer culture, sexuality and rebellion against society. The story is certainly funny mostly because of the spirit/thoughts and personality of the protagonist, Sammy, who speaks at the 1st person in the whole story. This short story relates brief but significant events for Sammy, three shopper teenage girls enter the grocery store, where he works, in bathing suit.
In the story A&P, Updike is trying to make a point to never judge a book by its cover. Even though the young girls; Queenie, Plaid and Big Tall Goony-Gooney came into the grocery store with nothing but their bathing suits on and bare feet; doesn’t mean they were looking for trouble. All they wanted was to buy herring for Queenies mother. Readings between the lines of a characters point of view can be easy but can also be challenging. I chose Sammy from A&P because he was someone I could relate to in a sense of working behind the counter and watching other costumers.
Angie Staiert Mr. Brandon Cummins ENG 102-OL6 October 22, 2011 Sammy’s Actions at A & P John Updike’s short story “A & P” is set in a small town grocery store with Sammy as a cashier. Three girls in bathing suits come into the grocery store, which may seem a little odd as they are nowhere near a beach, but it is summer time. Sammy and Stokesie (who is the other cashier) watch the girls as they stroll through the store looking for the one item they need. Sammy’s actions show how one person can stand up for what they believe in. At the end of “A & P” Sammy show’s his frustration on how the girl’s in the store had been treated by his manager Lengel that he quits in order to stand up for what he believed in.
In this case, it seems like a shallow kind of conflict, but the author is using this conflict to portray a deeper struggle, that of conforming to social norms and what happens if we don’t. As Sammy follows the girls’ progress through the store, we can tell, by his descriptions and the details he sees, the things that he finds important and how he feels about his position in life. Soon, the girls are discovered by Sammy’s manager. He comes over and tells them, “Girls, this isn’t the beach,” and, “We want you decently dressed when you come in here,” (Updike, 20) and the story reaches a crisis. A crisis is a specific event in the plot that narrows the conflict.
The boy the young girl has a crush on works at a local grocery store right across the street, the young girl persuades and forces her family to eat more so, she can shop at the that store more frequently, so she can catch a glimpse of his beauty: “Week after week I wandered up and down the aisles, taking furtive glances at the stock room in the back, breathlessly hoping to see my prince. {...} I felt like a pilgrim waiting for a glimpse of Mecca.”(Cofer 42) The young girl demonstrates how she refers to the guy as a god and puts him before god because she is so enchanted by his looks that she is desperate with this boy and is overtaken by him, through love.
In the beginning of the story, the protagonist (Sammy) was at his cashier as usual when the antagonists (the Queenie and the girls) walk into A & P grocery store in their bathing suits and changed Sammy’s life forever. The exposition of this story starts when the girls walk in with only their bathing suits and start to shop in the grocery store that is in the middle of town. The story takes place back when people still had a bit of innocence and morals. So for these girls to walk into a grocery store in their bathing suits in town was kind of disrespectful. As the girls are walking around the store, Sammy starts to observe them whenever he could see them from out of the isles.
Kristen Jackson English 1302 Professor Sharon Race October 25, 2010 Character Analysis of Sammy in “A&P” Every young person needs to realize (at some point) how important it is to take on some responsibility. In John Updike’s “A&P”, this is exactly what Sammy has to do. The story is about just a normal day at the grocery store. Soon, however, the entrance of three swim suited clad girls in to the store quickly breaks the monotony. Through Sammy’s thoughts and actions as events take place, we have become aware of his disrespect, judge mentality, and overall lack of responsibility.