In the beginning of the story he is somewhat immature in the ways he views life. He is a daydreamer, which is shown numerous times in his talk of the three young girls. He is selfish when he quits his job with no regard to how it will affect his parents who may have to support him now or Lengel who has had to take over his job as cashier. Sammy show a sympathetic side by getting upset when Queenie becomes embarrassed, he also shows devotion by sticking to his decisions even after he realizes they were not wrong. By the end of this story Sammy shows how his characteristics have changed from that of a young man with no worries to that of a man by realizing how hard life would be on him and everyone who loves
He chose to no longer be a part of something that discouraged uniqueness. Sammy accepted the girls’ need to conform and supported them all the way, even if it meant letting down his parents and his manager, who happened to be a family friend. In the story Sammy’s fantasies reveal that he is simply bored while at work. He is stuck in this rut of his life, and craves some sort of change. Living this lifestyle would drive anyone to want to rebel against authority just to spice things up a bit.
He says to his manager that he quits hoping that it is quick enough for the girls to hear, turn around, and watch his heroic act but the girls continue walking. This attempt to impress the three girls displays a more chivalrous approach that he now has towards women. He stands up for the girls by quitting and telling Lengel that he “did not have to embarrass them.” (18) Even though Lengel is a good friend of Sammy’s parents and reminds him that they’ll be upset, the young boy sticks to his decision. Updike describes Lengel’s confrontation with the girls as making Sammy feel “so scrunchy inside” (19) that Sammy pops the drawer out of his register as his final act of duty at the A&P. When Sammy finally leaves the A&P, he looks for the girls in the parking lot but they are not there.
However, it was a sad result when his fountain he built was not enough to change the mind of the girl he waited so long for. The beautiful woman ran back to a man of money and prominence because she could not see Viktor as a member of her own “in-group”. In some ways she discriminated and used every excuse as a scapegoat reason for why she and Viktor could not be together. Unfortunately, this small sample is not far from the potential out- group discrimination that has led to racism. Viktor was blessed to not experience this type of bias, as he soon became part of every employee’s “in-group” after he saved the man who needed pills for his
The qualities that the diction and dialogue bring out in Sammy are ultimately what indicate a transition beginning to take place in his life. Sammy is in his last year of being a teenager and displays extremely immature qualities, the worst of them all being his impulsivity. Sammy quits his job not in some heroic effort to right a social wrong or even because he dislikes his job, but because he wants to impress three strangers who will probably never think of the act again. Sammy quickly realizes that prioritizing females over a job was probably the wrong decision when he is outside of his former place of work “[feeling] how hard the world would be to [him] hereafter.” Once he has stepped out of A & P, he has not just stepped outside, but into another part of his life: adult hood. This transition for the painfully obviously unprepared Sammy is uncomfortable to watch unfold because the reader knows that he is doomed based off of his mindset and
They also represent the girls’ deliberate provocation, an attempt to attract the eye of every man they encounter. Sammy is initially drawn to the girls simply because they are scantily different , young, and attractive.. What he ultimately finds compelling about the girls in their bathing suits is that they have disrupted the system of rules that he has been forced to observe, an observation that Lengel, the authority figure, underscores by trying to enforce the rules the girls have violated. When Sammy quits his job, he significantly removes the corporate uniform that establishes his place in the system. Sammy views quitting the job as his way to assert his own independence However, the freedom of the bathing-suited girls remains unavailable to him. .
He enjoyed the change of scenery they had provided with their presence, but from a moral standpoint, he was neither here nor there. Things quickly took a change for the worse when Lengel confronted Queenie, and Sammy noticed the change in Queenie’s disposition from cool to upset. The unjust treatment of Queenie created an environment that was uncomfortable for Sammy and forced him to make a move, even if it was for the wrong and the wrong choice. Sammy quit his job and didn’t get the recognition from the girls he was so desperately
She prefers to spend more time with herself than with her family because of this she has a weak relationship with her parents. The story discusses how she has two sides: one for home and one for not being home. Her abduction was solely due to her fault for her appearance that she presented in public, to the relationship that she had with her family and lastly her naiveness. The antagonist Arnold Friend somehow knew about Connie. He saw a great opportunity the moment he set his eyes on her.
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).
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