A Character Analysis Of Sammy In John Updike's A & P

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 still has his eyes focused on the girls for when they finally decide that they are ready to check-out, he then starts to show the immaturity of his attitude, and he states that he sees the costumer as “sheep and house slaves.” He then starts to look at his life through queenies noticing that there is something better than the convenient store which makes him hunger for more opportunities beyond his experience. The girls then come to check-out and the manager notices that they are just in bathing suits and he states “girls this isn’t the beach” and…show more content…
Ed. Anna Sheets. Vol. 27. Detroit: Gale, 1998. 319-330. Literature Criticism Online. Gale. Amarillo College. 30 January 2013