With Sammy watching them he ends up miscounting money for a customer and because of that the woman gives him a rude looks a seems to be a tad bit upset. Sammy lets that go though and continues to watch after the girls. Lengel the manager finds the girls in the store and it seems that it is offended by what they are wearing inside his grocery store. “Girls, this isn’t the beach”( Page 134) he says to them. Queenie responds with explain to Langel that her and her friends are there just picking up a few small things that her mother asked for.
Sammy was able to draw conclusions about the girls that were walking around the store such as calling one of the girls “the queen” just based on the way she looked and acted. Although not as detailed, while working I often look at the people who are shopping and draw conclusions such as what kind of job I think they have or how many kids I think they have. The final aspect that I can relate to is the part of the story where Sammy gets annoyed with his boss and quits. Sammy doesn’t like the way that his boss, Lengel, talks to the girls and in an attempt to impress them, quits his job. I would never have the courage to quit my job and tell my boss that they were not treating someone right but I have thought about it before.
(Updike, 1961, p. 335)Sammy’s mixed emotions of lust and pride lead him to quit his job after the manager criticizes the girls about their choice of attire and their self-respect. Sammy has an epiphany as he walks out the grocery store and realizes he just quit his job out of hopes of having the
The first contains struggles against rules which is the three girls walking in dressed inappropriately at the supermarket, “A & P“. The whole time that the girls are wandering around the store to purchase their item, Sammy watches their every move and simply is attached to the leader of the group whom he calls “Queenie”. The store manager
They make their way to Sammy’s check stand to make their purchase. As this transpires the antagonist, Mr. Lengel, enters the story and confronts the girls on their choice of attire. At this point in the story Sammy, as the girls are walking away, confronts Lengel about the way he embarrassed the girls. The two exchange words that were not so pleasant and Sammy, hoping that the girls heard the exchange, quit his job on the spot. This particular move on Sammy’s part said a lot about his attitude but not just about this moment but about his job and Mr.
I always tried to make the day go by faster but Sean had his eyes on me at all times. I was at the register when our Assistant manager came to me and said there was a drunken woman roaming the store and to try and steer clear of her. I looked at her like an idiot what does she expect me to do walk away from the register and hope no customers come. I mean how bad could the
She just shoved in her clothes, her jewellery, her perfumes” (page 281) shows her to be a vain, desperate creature who strives to give her life some purpose but is looking in all the wrong places. The passage “She joined the CWA, mixed with Corrigan’s leading ladies, helped cater for events and joined all the amateur pleared-skirt sporting fraternities and committees” (page 97) emphasises her desire to be a well-thought of and active member of the community. However her materialistic values are shown to be void and meaningless: “... she dragged that empty suitcase to her vanity table. She stole it from me, but she had nothing precious of her own to pack in it. She just shoved in her clothes, her jewellery, her perfumes” (page 281) shows her to be a vain, desperate creature who strives to give her life some purpose but is looking in all the wrong places.
Sammy watches these three girls and gives them labels of to what role each plays, from “the queen” who “kind of led them” to “the kind of girl other girls think is very ‘striking’ and ‘attractive’ but never quite makes it” and “the chunky one” (page 289) by the way they walk around the supermarket. The reader gets a feeling of how mundane and dull the patrons of the A & P are on page 290 when Sammy states how “you could set off dynamite in an A & P and the people would by
Ms. Moore tells the children to go into the store, but she does not lead the way. Here Sylvia becomes uncharacteristically unsure of herself, "But I feel funny, shame, But what I got to be shamed about? Got as much right to go in as
The reader sees this through his negative description of the regular shoppers and of the woman he checks out in the beginning, his mixed feelings about the three girls, and through his effort to defend the three girls in the end of the story. Sammy’s objectification and negative attitude towards the opposite