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A&P Characters

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Submitted By dlpxo
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Sammy’s job as a19 year old boy is to check out groceries at the local grocery store called “A&P”, with his friend Stokesie, who is 22 and married with two kids. One afternoon, three young girls walk into the store barefoot and in their bathing suit. Sunny describes the first girl as “chunky, with the two piece..” (Updike 1110), and the second girl as one with “chubby berry-faces, with lips all bunched under her nose” (Updike 1110) and “the kind of girl other girls think is very striking and attractive” (Updike 1111). The third girl is the girl Sammy likes a lot and enjoys watching. She was not so tall and “was the queen” (Updike 1111). She wore her straps down off her bathing suit and had long prima-donna legs and pale skin. Her name was Queenie, so they referred to her as. She was always in the middle and leading the way with her two girl friends following her side. The two boys were so shocked that these three girls came into their store in their bathing suit because their store was five miles away from the beach in the middle of town. They enjoyed watching them walk up and down the aisle though comparing it to a “pinball machine, not knowing what aisle they would come out of” (Updike 1112). As the girls walked up to the checkout, their manager, Lengel, stops the girls and confronts them about their inappropriate attire and tells them next time to come in with their shoulders covered because it the store’s policy. The relationship of the boy, Sammy and his manager, Lengel have a lot of tension towards the end of the story because Sammy quit his job. He did not agree with Lengel calling the girls out like the way he did. Sammy thinks Lengel embarrassed the girls but Lengel says the girls embarrassed the store (Updike 1113). Lengel questions Sammy quitting his job because he had been a family friend for a long time. Sammy’s relationship with Lengel obviously is rocky towards the end of the story because he did not agree with the way Legel handled the situation with the girls in the bathing suits. Works Cited
Updike, John. “A&P” Short Fiction. Pg. 1110-1114. Print.

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