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.
In John Updike’s “A&P”, standing up for what he believed was right was all it took for Sammy to become an adult. As Sammy rang up the purchases of the everyday “sheep” (79) and “house-slaves” (79), he notices the “three girls in nothing but bathing suits” (77) that had come in. Like most hormonal, teenage boys would, he watched the pretty girls as they walked throughout the store, especially “Queenie” (79), who appeared to be the leader of the girls. He began to feel bad for them though when he realized his male coworkers were also “sizing up their joints” (79). After all, “they couldn’t help it” (79).
Janie walks into town during the middle of the day after returning from a long disappearance wich gets the “porch sitters” Gossiping about the young boy she ran out into the sunset with. Along with the gossip of the young boy she ran off with is the talk of how she is wearing her hair. The porch sitters saying “what dat ole forty year ole oman doin wid her hair swangin down her back lak she some young gal”. The fact that Janie doesn’t wrap her hair even after hearing the gossip proves she doesnt mind much about what other peoples opinions are of her and her actions. Because Janie isnt liked by the town she is constantly criticized by the town.
Sammy and his decision Most men will try their hardest just to impress women. This is what A&P is all about. Sammy, who works as a cashier in a supermarket, gives us a perfect example what he done to impress a girl. His poor decision to quit his job was a bad decision and will definitely have a big effect on him in the future. In the very first sentence Sammy seemed shocked, "In walks three girls in nothing but bathing suits" (Updike).
This shows that none of the boys discriminated in their hate, but had, as the FBI put it: ´excessive hatred to-wards everybody else´. This is also shown through the columbine boys´ journal, where they rant about everything they hate (a considerably long list), as well as in Weise´s drawings. These writings and drawings show the boys´ preoccupation with anything with violence or hate themes (another sign of a possible school shooter, according to the FBI). ´ (Weise) was a talented artist, but he drew terrible, terrible scenes´ says one of his friends mothers. All 3 boys were also very interested in
Sammy desires a greater, more authentic life than the one he has working at A&P. Sammy wants to get out of the path that Lengel, Sammy’s boss, perhaps took, working at A&P his whole life. Sammy’s cashier job at the supermarket is made out to be extremely significant to his parents and for his future. In reality, it is just a small-town job in which Sammy feels there are better things. Sammy will not feel this for the rest of his life because this cashier job is not what Sammy desires. When Sammy quits he demonstrates a rise to meet the standards of the better life.
Then after he quit he realized that he made a mistake after the girls didn’t acknowledge him defending them. In the beginning of the story, Sammy’s first reason for his immaturity and irresponsibility is his boredom in working in this grocery store. In the store, no excitable occurrences or active situations are going on; nothing is going out of the ordinary. The customers that comes through the store, Sammy calls them sheep because they are like followers, the customers do the same thing when they come to the store. When three girls come in with only bathing suits, he called them the same thing, “The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle-the girls were walking against the usual traffic (not that we have one-way signs or anything)-were pretty hilarious,” (Updike 99).
In John Updike's short story “A&P” we meet a young protagonist named Sammy who works at the “A&P grocery store. He takes notice of a group of girls who, wearing only bathing suits, browse throughout the aisles of the store looking for herring snacks. Throughout the story he appraises the girls sexually and judges them harshly, based on their looks. Towards the end of the story, the girls have a confrontation with the store manager because of their attire. This leads to Sammy defending the girls, and ultimately quitting his job, only to have his chivalric deed go unnoticed.
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.
Sammy works at the A&P supermarket in small town and seems to be tired of the boring day by day of the job. Sammy got the job because of his parents, but he does not want his fate to be similar to his co worker Stokesie “….married with two babies chalked up on his fuselage already” (Updike, 221). Three girls walk into the store with bathing suits not the usual looking customers at this store. “….usually women with six children and varicose veins mapping their legs….” (Updike, 221) indicating the normal customers are old women. The three girls do not represent conformity and Sammy would like to be like them.