The A & P Conflict

In the end, the two boys are faced with the grim reality that the girls have no desire for their company. This is their awakening of themselves. It shows how despair can be both disheartening and uplifting at the same time. The gifts each young man offered his love interest are not well received. No matter their efforts, both young men fail miserably in their attempts to win their respective ladies. Sammy knows what he has done will change his life forever and that nothing can change that now but, is also

young man’s life. While the customers of the store scorn the girls’ immodesty, a cashier, Sammy,

Sammy and Sarty are two protagonists that have to mature beyond normal circumstances and experience the “real world” at tender ages. Each character is forced to grow up and refine themselves in their darkest hour. Sammy and Sarty are both dissatisfied with their authority figures; however, the time periods in which they live take place in different

He portrays them as sheep with the inability to stray from their monotonous routines. “The sheep pushing their carts down the aisles-“, “I bet you could set off dynamite in the A&P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists.” [386]. He views each day as predictable with nothing to look forward to. That is why when these girls entered the store it was a sight to behold. It was the abrupt change in the daily conformity that Sammy so desperately wanted. “The store’s pretty empty, it being a Thursday afternoon, so there was nothing to do except lean on the register and wait for the girls to show up again.” [387]. He changed that day, from a teenage boy with immature daydreams about girls, to an adult. It was because of the insight he depicted from these girls. When the manager, Lengel, embarrasses the girls for their lack of clothing, it upsets Sammy. He then chooses to quit. He reasons it is the right choice, concluding it is the adult thing to do. To stand-up for what is right, and to voice his disagreement with Lengel at his attempt in humiliating the girls. “-but remembering how he made that pretty girl blush makes me so scrunch inside I punch the No Sale tab and the machine whirls “pee-pul” and the drawer splats out.” [388]. He concedes that the conformity of these people and the “day to day” routine is unacceptable, especially when it makes you feel superior,

At the beginning he sees the girls who are the flat characters and he fanaticizes about their life and how great it must be. He is unhappy and does nothing to change it in the beginning. He even puts up with the lady who gives him an attitude about accidently swiping a product twice. He jokes about her instead saying this is most likely the first time she has had to call someone out for she watches the cash register like a hawk . Toward the end when the girls come to check out and Sammy’s boss who is a static character comes into play, Sammy makes a big change in his life. He quits his job because he is unhappy due to how his boss treats everyone. At that point he stood up for himself in addition to the

The opening sentence “ In walks three girls in nothing but bathing suits” (par.1) sets up the colloquial tone; it’s as if Sammy was talking to a friend. As the story goes on, the tone shifts from being informal to a little comical. He refers to the people in the checkout lane as “sheep” and “scared pigs in a chute.” However, by the end the tone shifts yet again and becomes heroic. The act of quitting a job (climax) in defiance of Lengel’s (manager and antagonist) unfair treatment of the girls is a strong indication of change in character. Sammy hoped the girls would notice his act of heroism. Ironically, the girls do not hear him. Instead, they head out forever disappearing from his life.

In A&P, Updike describes Sammy as the protagonist working as a cashier in a supermarket under the management that is friends of his parents Lengel. Sammy is a very observant young man who notices and labels the customers in the supermarket especially on this specific day. When three girls entered the store in their bathing suits. After walking around the supermarket, one of the girls wants to purchase a can of herring snacks. Lengel refuses to interest them because he thinks they were dressed inappropriate, but Sammy rings up the herring snacks and quits his job to show heroism. Therefore, Sammy social maturity before and after the moment when the girls walked into the store shows a forced coming of age in Sammy.

Despite all of his behaviors that seem to contradict this in the story, Sammy is actually a person that wants to be more than the small, rigid town he was raised in and is rather driven in his own way. The scene on page 166 most readily exemplifies this hidden characteristic of Sammy. When he hears Queenie’s voice, Sammy is initially shocked, as he thought her voice would be different, before he “...slid down her voice into her living room” (166). Sammy imagines an upscale party in Queenie’s house, complete with ornately dressed people and expensive refreshments. He then compares this to his own home life, saying that cheap beer is considered “…a real racy affair…” where he lives (166). By choosing the girls over his job, Sammy is symbolically choosing what kind of person he wants to be and what kind of life he wishes to lead in the

When he begins to realize the girls are nowhere to be found. A sense of reality hits him. He begins to think about the repercussions of what he has done. Sammy realizes his actions not only affected him, but his actions also affected his family. What will he tell his family? His family probably needed the money to help sustain the family. Jobs probably aren’t easy to come by. Sammy is definitely not the same person as he was in the beginning of the story. He starts out as the impulsive teenager not really thinking about his actions. He lets his interest in someone shadow his judgement. Once he quits his job he realizes the mistake he has made and how it will impact his life. Sammy definitely realizes he made a mistake but if he chooses to learn from his mistakes, well that’s up to

First, every teenage should have experiment a rebellion stage to during their life. Sammy, the narrator of the story, quit his job is a form of rebellion. He quit his job because he didn’t like how the manger embarrassed the girls and he wanted the girl attention. In the story, Sammy didn’t like his job and he couldn’t find a way to quit his job. He found a way to quit his job and it by the girls.

Outside impacts on youth are a contributing element by they way they interface in day by day life. Sammy does not care for his occupation. The misery is further created by his judgmental stereotyping of everybody connected with the store

Fourthly, although Sammy’s decision to quit displayed a strong sense of principles and maturity, Sammy does not seem ready to take on the real world when he says “my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter” (Updike 153). Sammy is progressing to the new stage of his life. Updike responds to a comment about the ending regarding

Sammy is not your average A & P employee. He’s not fit to follow rules, especially when they belittle people. He stands up for what he believes in. Though Sammy may come off as a witty sexist while admiring the first one ”in the plaid green two piece” with “a sweet broad soft looking can”(p.157) and then asks “do you really think it’s a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?”(p.158) when talking about “how girls’ minds work” (p.158), Sammy is very opinionated and intelligent for his age. Sammy makes a life changing decision based on a brief moment that happened in the A & P. At only nineteen, he realizes “how hard the world was going to be” (p.162) to him for being a rebel. “A & P” is narrated by Sammy in a first person

Sammy and his parents belong to more of a working class, or the blue collar; working day in and day out just to make a living. In response to his fantasy about Queenie and her home life, he imagines his own; "When my parents have somebody over they get lemonade and if it's a real racy

Sammy is clearly bored at his job, I go through the punches, 4, 9, GROC, TOT -- it's more complicated than you think, and after you do it often enough, it begins to make a little song, that you hear words to, in my case “Hello (bing) there, you (gung) hap-py pee-pul (splat)”-the splat being the drawer flying out. His job is boring, not stimulating or exciting just a repetitive routine. As mentioned earlier in the synopsis, Sammy also feels superior to his coworker Stokesie, he wants something better than just what Stokesie has. Stoksie’s character symbolizes one of the possible futures that Sammy can have however, he doesn't want. Lengel symbolizes another future that Sammy could have, Lengel is a manager, Sunday school teacher, and dry not the life that Sammy is envisioning for himself. Quennie represents the third possible future. When Quennie and the other girls enter A&P they cause a distraction. All the customers are going about their routine as sheep, they do not pay attention to anything else other than getting their groceries and leaving. When the customers see the girls instead of going through the motions and shopping they stop and they heard to see the spectacle. Quennie and the girls represent adventure and excitement, different from the other two possible futures. When the girls get to the register and the argument begins with Lengel and the girls, Sammy is at a crossroad. Lengel represents the