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.
What is the climax of the story? The story’s conflict has begun when shoppers are unsettled by the beach clothing the girls are wearing. Most of this unsettlement is probably due to the fact that the store is far away from a beach and they are not used to seeing that type of attire being worn. The resulting climax of the story ends up having the manager of the grocery store confront both girls near the register, where Sammy eventually takes his stand 6. Why, exactly, does Sammy quit his job?
This short story relates brief but significant events for Sammy, three shopper teenage girls enter the grocery store, where he works, in bathing suit. Dressed for the beach, Sammy fantasize about them speculating about their personalities and private lives. The three girls rebelling against the law of society, Sammy tries to do the same by quitting his job hoping that it would catch their attention. The girls not caring about him leave without paying attention to him. The story ends with Sammy realizing the consequences of his rash decision and feeling “how hard the world was going to be for [him] hereafter”.
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. Sammy is an older teen who is not loyal to his job because Lengal said to the girls,” Girls I don’t want to argue with you. After this, come in here with your shoulders covered.
Sammy’s description of Lengel the store manager as a much older person leads us to notice the generational difference between them. Sammy’s choice of words describing the young women compared to the store manager’s statement “We want you decently dressed when you come in here” as he confronts the girls identifies our ideas of decent are relative to our generation. When Sammy decided to quit his job at the A&P. He was representing what all of us have the right to do by standing up for our beliefs. Sammy felt strongly that Lengel was unjust in the way the girls were confronted but made a decision in hast whether right or wrong but one of his own choosing.
It’s our policy” (35). Lengel believed he was doing the right thing for the store but he didn’t realize how it made the girls feel. Just like Sammy, I did not agree with this policy at my salon. Although I did not quit like Sammy, I made my point that I had to stick up for the girls. At my tanning salon I work with a lot of females, and in the summer time it gets hot!
In the short story “A&P” by John Updike, check out boy Sammy stands up for the “mistreatment” of girls dressed in bikinis who came into the grocery store that he worked at. While practically drooling at the girls as they walked through the aisles, his mind had essentially put them on a silver platter. When his boss told the girls to not come back without some proper clothes on, Sammy quits his job saying to his manager, “You didn’t have to embarrass them.” Sammy’s abrupt decision to quit showed how much he was caught up with the girls, of whom he didn’t even know. After handing back his apron, he ran outside expecting to see the girls waiting for him in order to thank him for standing up for them. Obviously when he got outside, they were long gone.
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.
The three girls do not represent conformity and Sammy would like to be like them. The customers are stunned as the girls make their way through the store, prompting the manager Mr. Lengel to speak to the girls about their attire “Girls this isn’t the beach” (Updike, 222). Lengel told the girls they needed to be properly dressed when they came to the store and Sammy views this as an attack on nonconformity. Sammy decides to quit his “He’s been a friend of my parents for years.” (Updike, 223) Sammy is wondering what his parents would think about him quitting. “….I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter, Sammy knew he made a decision that he has to deal with but he stood up to it showing a sign of