...John Updike “A & P” We were asked in class to write a short paper after being asked the question, “What is the most intriguing or interesting piece we have read, and why?” My response to this question was John Updike’s “A & P”. “A & P” was not the best or even the most interesting piece that I have read. However, out of all of the stories that I have read for this class, “A & P” left me with the most questions. Some of the questions that I asked myself after reading this story were, “What did Updike want me to get from this story?” The second question I asked myself was, “Was there any symbolism or foreshadowing in the extreme amount of detail that Updike used in this story?” The last question that I wanted to answer was, “Is that it?” Did John Updike really write a story about dress code of a supermarket? Or, did he write this story about the moral dilemma a young clerk faces when he believes his boss was rude to three underdressed girls? John Updike’s “A & P” was first published in 1962. This story took place in a small grocery store. The main character, Sammy, is a young clerk. He is ringing up a lady whom he describes as a “witch”, when three young ladies enter the store wearing nothing but bathing suits. Updike uses great detail in describing the three girls. The first one that he noticed was described as “a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit…”...
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...Although the short stories "A&P" by John Updike and "Araby" by James Joyce are written in different countries and time periods both short stories have many similarities. The protagonists of each narrative have an immense interest in young women due to them being both adolescent males dealing with their hormones. This is apparent in "A&P" when Sammy sees the three girls walk into the grocery store in their bathing suits and reacts by doing the following, "[Sammy] stood here with my hand of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not" (Updike 1). The protagonist, Sammy, is being controlled by his urges to stare at the three girls and forgets about reality. Similarly, the protagonist of "Araby" develops an infatuation with Mangan's sister by displaying how he follows her and knows her schedule. His obsession originates from his ignorance...
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...A&P John Updike As I began to read A&P by John Updike, I began to relate to Sammy. I relate to his views on the girls and I relate to how he is not assimilated into the group at A&P. When seeing girls in bikinis that are attractive, it is natural for a teen to stop and look. Sammy reacted the same way I would have, by checking them out. The girls relate to Sammy because they defy the normal standards of the store. This is just like Sammy. Sammy is a sarcastic guy who is not trying to climb the corporate ladder at A&P. He is unlike his co worker, Stokesie, who is trying to be promoted. I felt like Sammy represents an everyday teen. He works for extra cash and he checks out girls. Having finished the reading, I realized that the girls were a symbol for him. This symbol was to defy the standards of society and do what you want. As I reread and studied A&P, I noticed the connection between Sammy and the girls. Sammy intently looks at each of the three girls. He uses descriptive words...
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...Sammy, is a 19-year-old working as a cashier at an A&P. The theme becomes very obvious from the very beginning of the story. Sammy thinks that most people that he sees in his store are “sheep” (“A&P – John Updike”). To Sammy, everyone is the same; boring and lacking character, “The sheep pushing their charts down the aisle…” (“A&P – John Updike”). It is apparent that he is anxious to get out of the mold that he has been stuck in, but he doesn’t know how until the opportunity is presented to him. The opportunity finally presents itself when Sammy stops daydreaming and actually breaks free from the conventions of society when he meets Queenie. By quitting his job, Sammy experiences what it means to be free from the social norm (“SparkNotes: A7P:...
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...John Updike’s “A&P” as a provocative tale of social perception In order to understand the two stories on John Updike’s “A&P”, the characters have to hold the weight of being the most important theme in the short story. The first set of characters consists of Sammy, the Girls, and Lengel who all dictate the first short story from Sammy’s point of view. The second of the two tales Updike pens about in this short, is that of where he makes us question what being “decent” by society’s current standards means, by putting an emphasis on perception and almost spoon-feeding us readers to pick up on what he’s trying to imply by using Sammy to illustrate it all. The paper-thin storyline consisting of what Sammy is going through by narrating and the other, which is the main story being Sammy and the girls representing freedom and non-conformity from a neutral point of view versus what Lengel, the shoppers, and the storefront itself represent as being the socially correct status quo and policy we hold as normal living in society. In this story the establishment that is the A&P itself, is portrayed as routine and monotonous as a market in the middle of town can possibly be. Updike made it so on purpose, to give us a neutral setting that synonymous with our reality and what we perceive as normal behavior in society. The A&P is acceptable as a run-of-the-mill chain market, this character represents the status quo of a 1st world society where one is judged instantly for behaving...
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...their job. Sammy is part of that statistic. Sammy is the impulsive, rebellious, nineteen year old narrator in the short story “A&P”. While working the A&P checkout line in his small town, he displays several qualities which make an intriguing character. Sammy fears responsibility. He shows this through teasing older, authoritative, coworkers. Additionally by his need for his mother to iron his shirt the night before, as well as how dependent he was on his parents to even receive the job. Sammy is also a adolescent with a healthy interest in the opposite sex and has a keen observational sense.This is apparent when he closely notices details of the young ladies bodies...
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...Growing Up: Much Harder Than We Expected As people age and grow up, maturity and wisdom is gained through every experience. From the time a child becomes an adult, they are required to deal with real life situations, and learn how to handle their responsibilities. In the short story “A&P” by John Updike, Sammy the narrator, is a young immature nineteen-year-old that makes a drastic change to his life. His immaturity and wishing to do and say whatever he wants leads into consequences he must face. The short story, A&P, takes place in a small New England town’s A&P grocery store. A&P is in the center off the town, five miles down the beach. Sammy is a grocery cashier, who finds himself fascinated by three girls in swim suits. Chunky or plain girl, is the first girl that catches Sammy’s attention. She has a tan with lines behind her back legs were the sun never hits. There was this tall girl too. Big tall “Goony-Goony” with a chin that was too long. The third one was the leader or “Queenie”, the name that Sammy used, was the most beautiful of all three. The way she walked with her prima-donna long legs catch Sammy’s attention. As the girls go around shopping through the store, Sammy observes the reactions of other customers as they see this girls outfit. The girls, however appear to be unique in all aspects. Walking down the aisle barefoot, standing up straight with their necks over stretched. They are different than the usual customers that Sammy sees every day, and this is...
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...Initiation into adulthood is an event in which every human being participates. The initiation process helps adolescents grow and mature into reasonable adults, and it is the basis of many artists’ paintings, songs, and written stories. A few notable works about the orientation into adulthood are Junot Diaz’s essay called “They Money”, Lynda Barry’s essay “The Sanctuary of School”, and finally John Updike’s story titled “A&P.” All three of these stories provide a glimpse into the path to adulthood. First of all, Diaz’s “The Money” speaks of a teenager who lives in a home where money is scarce. He says “She chipped dollars off from the cash Papi gave her for our daily expenses, forced our already broke family to live even broker” (Diaz 912)....
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...Comparison Essay ENG 102 Online “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver versus “A + P” by John Updike In the short stories “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver and “A + P” by John Updike the protagonists experience an epiphany that change their restricted way of thinking. The main character, “Sammy” in John Updike’s, “A + P” is a teenage boy working in the town grocery store. Sammy experiences an epiphany when he decides to quit his job at the grocery store. He quit because he believed that it was wrong of his boss to treat customers poorly due to any pre-conceived notion that was determined by what the customer looks like. Raymond Carver’s main character named “the husband” in his story “Cathedral” experiences an epiphany when he realizes he has wrongly stereotyped, a visiting friend of his wife’s named “Robert” because he blind. The theme of both of the stories, “Cathedral” and “A+P” is that the main characters are influenced and motivated by other individuals within the story to change their close-minded thinking. In “Cathedral” the character Robert, served as the husband’s motivation for change when he comes to stay with the husband and his wife. The three teenage girls in “A + P”, serve as the motivation to change Sammy’s way of thinking when they enter the grocery store dressed risqué to the grocery store’s standards. Raymond Carver portrayed the husband in “Cathedral” as a cynical person from the beginning of the story. The husband’s wife enjoyed sharing her feelings and thoughts through...
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...A&P Story and Character Analysis “…My stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter” (153). Unfortunately, many people can relate to this feeling after making a mistake or unintelligent decision. “A&P”, a short story, by John Updike tells of a brief yet problematic encounter in a local supermarket. The protagonist Sammy works as a cashier at the local A&P just north of Boston. After the incident when his boss embarrassed a group of young girls in the store, he impulsively decides he wants to quit as an act of heroism for the young embarrassed girls. Because he was distracted, he made an irrational decision that affected him and the people around him negatively. In “A&P”, Updike communicates the theme of thinking...
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...English 112 28 March 2012 A & P: An Analysis of the Character “Sammy” As people age, maturity and wisdom is gained through every experience. From the time a child turns eighteen and becomes an adult, they are required to deal with the realities of the real world and learn how to handle its responsibilities. In John Updike’s short story “A&P” the protagonist Sammy is a young man in 1961 New England who works in the town’s local grocery store. In a matter of a day, Updike goes from an immature boy with unrealistic ideas and fantasies, to a man who is about to realize how life altering the choices he makes can be. Sammy realizes that life isn’t always fair and that sometimes it involves the consequences that life can deal to anyone who has not had time to test a rash decision. Updike’s story illustrates that a part of growing up is a willingness to accept consequences of one’s choices, and that life's hardest lessons are sometimes learned a little too late. This story represents a coming-of-age for Sammy, as seen through his evaluations of the costumers as the story develops. Though it takes place over the period of a few minutes, it represents a much larger process of Sammy’s growth. From the time the girls enter the grocery store, to the moment they leave, you can see changes in Sammy. At first, he only notices the physical appearance of the girls: how they look and what they are wearing, seem to be his only thoughts. As the story progresses, he notices the interactions...
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...Perez 1 A&P The short story A&P by John Updike is about three teenage girls who walk into an A&P grocery store only wearing bathing suits. The story is narrated by a young man named Sammy. Sammy is working the checkout line when the three girls walk in. Sammy gives a description of each girl but shows much interest in the in the most attractive girl and he names her “Queenie” because she appears to be the leader of the three. A major themes that is shown in the short story is the objectifying of women. Sammy throughout the story objectifies these girls by comparing parts of their bodies to food. “She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and sweet broad soft looking can” (348). He is clearly only looking at her butt and compares it to a can. He focuses only on her butt and seems to like from the rest of her. “... and the plump one in plaid, that i liked better from the back a really sweet can pipes up” (352). Sammy makes it obvious that he only cares and sees the girls butt. So he objectifies her by the looks of her butt. Sammy is also physically attracted to the most attractive girl. “... she lifts a folded dollar bill out of the hollow at the center of her nubbled pink top. The jar went heavy in my hands” (351). The fact that the jar went heavy in his hands is because he got concentrated on her breasts and was only thinking about them. Sammy is only thinking and staring at her breasts and he objectifies her by them. “I uncrease the bill, tenderly as you may imagine...
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...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...
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...Who is Sammy? In the short story “A&P”; Sammy serves as the protagonist, main character and narrator. The story is told from his point of view, which I believe is very interesting because the narrative changes if this story is told from one of the other character’s point of view. This story takes places in a small conservative community with conservative views. Sammy is a 19 year old who works as a cashier at A&P grocery in a small town. Sammy can be described in many ways. He is very opinionated and observant of his surroundings. From the beginning of the story Sammy is seen as somewhat immature. Sammy seems to be very uninterested in his job but rather taken with its customers. I can relate to that somewhat. Retail can be so boring and mundane at times that you have to do something to help the time go by. He comments on everyone and everything. This serves as his entertainment to get through the day. In the story he quickly analyzes the girls as they come in the store. In fact, in the very first sentence Sammy says “in walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits”(Updike 32). It is quite an attention grabber. Sammy finds most people in town are followers and do the same thing. However, he notices “Queenie” is different. He is almost infatuated by her “sweet broad soft-looking can”(Updike 33). Based on the way he describes the girls he seems to judge people based on appearances. He depicts everything from the texture and patterns of their bathing suits to...
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...Manouchka St. George Professor Jonas ENG 113 June 4, 2013 Theme: “A & P” “A & P” by John Updike, is a short story presenting the main idea of man’s struggle to conquer individuality within society. Throughout the story, Updike uses symbolism to enhance the theme and focuses on one character, Sammy, a cashier who is enlightened by three girls breaking a store rule. Sammy symbolizes man’s discontent with the norms of society. This is evident in his sharp and critical observations about the people around him. His sarcastic wit also reveals his frustration. Sammy wants more out of life than being a checker of a small town supermarket job. He does not want to become like Lengel, the store manager, who enforces company standards regardless of the situation. Sammy, the narrator, is introduced as a grocery checker and an observer of the store's patrons. He finds himself fascinated by a particular group of girls. Assuming that they are just in from the beach, although there is not one close by, and still in their bathing suits, they are a stark contrast, to the otherwise plain store interior. As they go about their errands, Sammy observes the reactions, of the other customers, to this trio of young women. He uses the word "Sheep" to describe the store regulars, as they seem to follow one and other, in their actions and reactions. The girls, however, appear to be unique in all aspects of their beings, from walking, down the aisles to against the grain by going barefoot and in swim...
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