Analysis Of A & P By John Updike

The grocery store was not that busy, informed in the story that “The stores pretty empty, it being Thursday afternoon, so there was nothing much to do except lean on the register and wait for the girls to show up again” (Updike 475). Sammy did not miss the opportunity to keep his eyes on the girls, especially since he was instantly interested in Queenie who was introduced to us as the leader among the girls. Each of the girls was different and had bathing suits on. Sammy was very descriptive about each bathing suit; he included many details. Queenie “had on a kind of dirty-pink beige maybe, I don’t know bathing suit with a little nubble all over it and, what got me, the straps were down, they were off the shoulders looped loose around the cool tops of her arms, and I guess"(Updike 473).

Unfortunately, Lengal, the store manager, finds this attire inappropriate. Sammy is determined to defend the three girls and quits his job in a show of defiance. Sammy is an observant, immature, and rash character, but has an honourable heart and stands up for what he believes in. Sammy pays incredible attention to detail. He notices each of the girls’ individual

“A&P” is a short story by John Updike about a young man by the name of Sammy. Sammy works at a grocery store by the name of A&P on the east coast, which is smack in the middle of town and 5 miles from the beach. However, Sammy’s dull workplace gets flipped upside down when 3 girls stroll in wearing bathing suits. This changes Sammy’s life forever as he takes a rite of passage to learn about conformity, power, and girls. One of the things Sammy comes to understand during his job is how he is to be one with the corporate system symbolized by A&P.

She starts communicating with him more and she’s not on the phone when he gets home. In the end, Esther gets the idea to buy Sluggo, the crab, a companion. She makes a scene in the store of how great the crabs are and buys every single one of them, Esther and Michael talk later and they bond through his dead mother. This story shows that Michael’s feelings for his aunt Esther changed. In the beginning, Michael and Esther don’t connect.

Lengel was on his was back in from being outside dealing with the cabbage delivery truck. On his way to his office Lengel notice the girls and thinks to himself what the heck is going on. Why are these girls in nothing but there bathing suits? He teacher Sunday school so makes him kind of a stickler for rules. Mr. Lengel approaches the girls and says, “Girls, this isn’t the beach.” Updike’s decision to choose to write in 1st person-naïve is an excellent choice to show the inner working of a show that individual in the process of becoming of age.

In fact, Lengel goes on to say, “we want to decently dress when you come in here” (3). Lengel does not appreciate how the girls are dressed because he deems it both inappropriate and unacceptable. These girls are characterized as tourists who were enjoying their time at the beach, located 5 miles away from A&P.

When he sees the girls, he feels that there are people who are able to break out what is expected and can act different. By quitting his job, Sammy shows he is no “sheep” and have authority to act differently. The story takes place in a grocery store in a beach town. Without the setting, the girls would not have wandered the aisles and Sammy would not have a chance to quit his job. The theme of the story is appearance.

That one item her mom requested her to get was Kingfish Fancy Herring snacks in pure sour cream. Right then, as she was purshading that single item, the store manager Lengel comes in and things took a turn for the worse. He sees that the girls are only wearing swimsuits and says to them “Girls, this isn’t the beach” ( Updike 1016 ) causing one of the girls, Queenie (as sammy mentally nicknamed her) to blush from embarrassment. Imagine being in a store that is about five minutes away from the beach and the manager telling you that, when you just came in to get one single item. She replied, “My mother asked me to pick up a jar of herring snacks” and he replied to that with “That’s all right.

This proves that Curley's wife is weak and she is upset that the men won't talk to her. She uses her power against them to hide the fact that she is lonely and insecure. Secondly, Curley's wife sees herself as a tease to the other men although they want nothing to do with her. She uses her pretty face of makeup, nice body, and bouncy hair to show off to them. When she enters the barnhouse, Lennie is fascinated by her.

Patrick Maloney came home to bear the bad news not expecting her to beat him over the head with a frozen leg of lamb. A similar theme is described in the short story “Jury of her Peers.” The men investigating the murder head upstairs while ordering their wives to stay downstairs explaining that they cannot help them because they don’t have the skill nor the common sense to find needed evidence. What they don’t realize is that while the women stay downstairs, Mrs. Hale and Mrs Peters find enough evidence to piece together the entire untold side of the story. But to pay their husbands back, they keep it to themselves to protect Mrs. Wright because they have sympathy for the