a&p short story essay

“A & P” by John Updike Essay

Life is full of struggles which are inevitable to every human being. Growing up is a process in life that requires someone to make decisions and be ready to take full responsibility for all the consequences that emanate from the decisions made.

Updike in the short story “A & P” uses Sammy, a teenager who is employed as a clerk in a grocery shop to illustrate the difficulties involved in the process of growing up.

Just as Sammy had to make an important decision,n that had severe consequences which were irreversible, so are all the other adolescents in different parts of the world.

Updike is aimed at illustrating the whole process of growing up and the struggles therein through narrating the story of Sammy as he works in the grocery shop. To begin with, the narrator appears as a young man who is not only innocent but also ignorant.

The growth of Sammy, which later leads to freedom is catalyzed by the entry of three girls into the store. Since the girls are dressed only in a Bikini such that most of their body parts are left bear, their presence in the shop results in different reactions.

Their presence affects not only Sammy but also Lengel who happens to be the owner of the store. The way he views the girls is a clear indication of the process of maturity.

He begins by only recognizing the physical features but continues to analyze their behaviors as well as their appearance (Kennedy and Gioia pp. 18). He notices that they are different from others since they have chosen to dress according to their liking.

More to that, Sammy continues to analyze even the way others are viewing the girls. Since he identifies and is attracted to one of the girls, he gets angry when they are humiliated by the manager.

At this point, the situation requires Sammy to graduate from just being an admirer to a protector and a hero.

The author also illustrates that growing up and becoming mature is associated with standing for what someone believes and making a tough decision to stand by it.

Sammy makes a quick and significant decision of quitting his job or ‘removing the apron’ to illustrate that he was ready to stand for what he believed in.

More to that, he is ready to face the consequence for his decision because even though the manager gives him a second chance and tells him that his decision may affect his parents, he does not look back but moves on with his decision.

The author tries to signify not only the consequences of moving on with life but also the struggle of the parents while letting go.

Sammy illustrates that quitting his job was a sad moment for his parents but to him, it was an achievement altogether and he was not ready to reverse the decision whatsoever (Kennedy and Gioia pp. 19).

As much as the critics argue that the only reason that makes the story famous is that the readers identify with Sammy, the author has used first-person narration effectively to help and explain the struggles young people go through before becoming adults.

In such a short moment that involves a conflict between Sammy and the manager, the author succeeds in illustrating that developing individuality and attaining freedom is a personal responsibility.

Moreover, the use of first-person narration helps the author to vividly illustrate the conflicts that adolescents have to solve and mend to attain the status of an adult.

Therefore, the use of first-person narration makes the story not only interesting but also helps the author to communicate his views regarding struggles of growing up to the audience.

Kennedy, X. J. and Dana Gioia. Literature: an introduction to fiction, poetry, and drama. London: Longman, 2005. Print.

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Analysis of John Updike's "A and P"

The story shares a unique perspective on social norms

Short Stories
Best Sellers
Classic Literature
Plays & Drama
Shakespeare
Children's Books
Ph.D., English, State University of New York at Albany
B.A., English, Brown University

Originally published in The New Yorker in 1961, John Updike's short story "A & P" has been widely anthologized and is generally considered to be a classic.

The Plot of the Updike's "A&P"

Three barefoot girls in bathing suits walk into an A & P grocery store, shocking the customers but drawing the admiration of the two young men working the cash registers. Eventually, the manager notices the girls and tells them that they should be decently dressed when they enter the store and that in the future, they will have to follow the store's policy and cover their shoulders.

As the girls are leaving, one of the cashiers, Sammy, tells the manager he quits. He does this partly to impress the girls and partly because he feels the manager took things too far and didn't have to embarrass the young women.

The story ends with Sammy standing alone in the parking lot, the girls are long gone. He says that his "stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter."

Narrative Technique

The story is told from the first person point of view of Sammy. From the opening line--"In walks, these three girls in nothing but bathing suits"--Updike establishes Sammy's distinctively colloquial voice. Most of the story is told in the present tense as if Sammy is talking.

Sammy's cynical observations about his customers, whom he often calls "sheep," can be humorous. For example, he comments that if one particular customer had been "born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem ." And it's an endearing detail when he describes folding his apron and dropping the bow tie on it, and then adds, "The bow tie is theirs if you've ever wondered."

Sexism in the Story

Some readers will find Sammy's sexist comments to be absolutely grating. The girls have entered the store, and the narrator assumes they are seeking attention for their physical appearance. Sammy comments on every detail. It's almost a caricature of objectification when he says, "You never know for sure how girls' minds work (do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?)[...]"

Social Boundaries

In the story, the tension arises not because the girls are in bathing suits, but because they're in bathing suits in a place where people don't wear bathing suits . They've crossed a line about what's socially acceptable.

Sammy says:

"You know, it's one thing to have a girl in a bathing suit down on the beach, where what with the glare nobody can look at each other much anyway, and another thing in the cool of the A & P, under the fluorescent lights, against all those stacked packages, with her feet paddling along naked over our checkerboard green-and-cream rubber-tile floor."

Sammy obviously finds the girls physically alluring, but he's also attracted by their rebellion. He doesn't want to be like the "sheep" he makes such fun of, the customers who are befuddled when the girls enter the store.

There are clues that the girls' rebellion has its roots in economic privilege, a privilege not available to Sammy. The girls tell the manager that they entered the store only because one of their mothers asked them to pick up some herring snacks, an item that makes Sammy imagine a scene in which the "men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow ties and the women were in sandals picking up herring snacks on toothpicks off a big glass plate." In contrast, when Sammy's parents "have somebody over they get lemonade and if it's a real racy affair Schlitz in tall glasses with "They'll Do It Every Time" cartoons stenciled on."

In the end, the class difference between Sammy and the girls means that his rebellion has far more serious ramifications than theirs does. By the end of the story, Sammy has lost his job and alienated his family. He feels "how hard the world [is] going to be" because not becoming a "sheep" won't be as easy as just walking away. And it certainly won't be as easy for him as it will be for the girls, who inhabit a "place from which the crowd that runs the A & P must look pretty crummy."