Kaylyn Graham Mr. Winter English 1302 – DC019 30 January, 2013 Sammy is a young boy who is easily attracted to the opposite sex, very judgmental, and then realizing the consequence of failure in the real world. Character Analysis Sammy, the narrator in “A&P” by John Updike is a young boy, who works in a convenient store and notices the three girls that walk in. He then starts to become mesmerized with the girls and then starts to describe their physical appearance, from the texture and patterns of their bathing suits, and their actions. Sammy is so distracted by the girls that he is not paying any attention to what he is doing such as he is checking out a lady as he tells us a “cash-register-watchers,” and she has yet to see anything done wrong. As the girls walked up and down the aisles and each girl that he sees he starts to point out the flaws of each one of them mainly about Queenie when he states that she was a “queen” and that “she kind of led them”(a&p), as if they were a clique.
Sammy, the narrator of and cashier at A&P, is an opinionated, cynical, typical teenage boy with an obvious physical attraction to the opposite sex. Sammy is aware of everything around him and seems to have everybody figured out. From, according to Sammy, the witch-like customer whom he’s ringing up at the time he catches a glimpse of the three half-naked girls, to his coworker and manager. Sammy’s imperfections and narrow-mindedness are revealed by his particular observations. For example, the hanging bathing suit straps of one of the girls and the precise tan line boundaries of the other.
Cheniqua William Professor English 1102 June 6, 2015 John Updike’s “A & P” Men will go to amazing measures to inspire ladies. This is the situation in the story "A & P" composed by John Updike. Sammy, who is a clerk at a grocery store, shows an excellent sample of a man attempting to inspire a lady. His imprudent choice to leave his place of employment was a terrible choice and will certainly have an unfriendly impact on him later on. Sammy appears to be destined from the first sentence when he says, "In strolls three young ladies in only swimming outfits" (Updike 1026).
If the story was narrated by Lengel then the whole perspective of the situation would change. Lengel is not rude to the girls; he just asks them to dress decent the next time they come in the store. Lengel sees the situation for what it is because he is not interested in these girls. Sammy is 19, and probably around the same age as the girls, so he enjoys the sight of them in just bathing suits. It is common knowledge that it is inappropriate to walk through a public place like a grocery store with just a bathing suit.
ENGL 204 [ 26 March 2013 ] Huckleberry Finn Discussion Board It is fair to say that Huck's “circumstances and his own moral nature make him the least carefree of boys - he is always “in a pickle” over the predicament of someone else”. Huck has to achieve some sort of balance between his natural inclinations and what he has been taught by society. From reading through this work multiple times, it would seem that Huck is almost obsessed with Tom. It is evident in the things he says such as, “I did wish Tom Sawyer was there”, or “I wish Tom Sawyer was here” and “I reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn't a done it no neater himself”. Those are a few examples which would seem to corroborate with this.
Persuasive/Argumentative A&P Throughout the short story of “A&P”, the main character Sammy makes a few decisions that reflect on him as a person. Sammy is a grocery clerks man who works the cash register at the store called the A&P. Physical attraction, going about quitting his job, and lack of responsibility shows just who he is. One might say he is nothing more than a foolish immature young man. To begin, the way Sammy describes the girls at the “A&P” shows just how immature he is. “With the straps pushed off, there was nothing between the top of the suit and the top of her head except just her, this clean bare plane of the top of her chest down from the shoulder bones like a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light” (540).
Though the women were unaware of what Sammy had done. His actions were noble and this was also a focal point in the development of the character's growth. Sammy desire to quit his job runs more deeper than that of being the “unsuspected hero” of those women. Yes he did admire the beauty of Queenie, but at the same time its possible to assume that he wanted her lifestyle: All of a sudden I slid right down her voice into her living room. Her father and the other men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow ties and the women were in sandals picking up herring snacks on toothpicks off a big plate and they were all holding drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them.
It’s certainly more entertaining than creating songs to the sounds of the cash register. He eagerly soaks up every minute of their presence until, climatically, the delinquency is brought to a screeching halt by Lengel. As the manager, he feels a duty to restore boring monotony and order to the store and therefore proceeds to dole out the proper reprimands. Sammy, fueled by hormones, adrenaline and a desire to break free from the mundane, decides to heroically quit his job right there on the spot in protest to the way the girls were treated. Quite different from what he had hoped for, his actions
The author, John Updike who has lived the life of a teenage boy as made his main character and narrator a teenage boy of eighteen. Reading the story is like reading the dirty and perverted thoughts of Sammy as the girls walk into A & P. Sammy is very judgmental towards the girls as he describes one of the girls as “very ‘striking’ and ‘attractive’ but never quite makes it” (557). He makes stereotypes about the three girls the way that men talk about girls, especially when it comes to intelligence. Sammy for example makes a comment about them thinking to himself “do you really think it’s a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?” (557). If this story was written by a woman, the story would be completely different in many
This story is consisted of point of view as the 1st person and as a hero. I can see, feel only he sees, feels, and thinks. In the story, the main stream is Sammy’s observation the reactions, of the other customers, to the three girls. The one of interesting expression is that “If she’d been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem.” (Pg ) Because he talks to himself inside his brain He can express his feeling very frankly and it makes me feels like he explain everything he is going through to me as my friend or me think like I am Sammy himself so it likes I am very close to him or, on his side. I could imagine how he surprised when I read the part he describes the girls.