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Sammy In John Updike's A & P

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In John Updike’s A&P, Sammy is portrayed as an arrogant character who desires women as exhibited through the school of psychoanalysis. He observes the behaviour of customers and draws from his experience as a cashier in order to characterize and scrutinize them. His attitude towards the customers leads him to believe that he possesses more power than the customers, assuming it challenges that of Lengel’s until he meets the girls. Sammy believes that he knows everything about the customers at A&P due to the behavioural observance of customers as a result of his experience as a cashier. He characterizes one of the customers as “a witch” in correspondence to his observation of how “it made her day to trip [him] up” because she gives him “hell”

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