Preview

Swimsuit In A & P

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
723 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Swimsuit In A & P
“Sammy is a nineteen year old young man who works as a cashier in A&P. He follows every rule of the store because he doesn't want to lose his job. One day, while he is bored and tired, three attractive girls wearing swimsuits come in for snacks. Other customers in the store are shocked and the manager of the store embarrasses them for not dressing properly. After all the drama ends, Sammy quits his job and restarts his life all over again. “That’s such an antic,” some people are saying. It seemed like Sammy quits his job for the girls. Well, as I said things in life always happen in unexpected ways. Nevertheless, Sammy quits due to the ridiculous policies and rules of the store. First of all, in the beginning of the story, Sammy mainly describes the three girls wearing swimsuits caught everyone's attention in A&P. “In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits… The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece…” (1-5). The three girls catch Sammy and every other person’s eyes. They are shocked by what the girls are wearing, because barely anyone has done such a thing before. This shows us that the people in this town always follow the rules. Also, there is another important character in the story. According to Sammy, the old register …show more content…
First, he is working hard also following the rules before the girls come in, “I’m in the third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see them until they're over by the bread” (2-3). Then, he starts to call them “my girls” instead of “the girls”. He begins to lean on the girls’ side, which is against the policies. Lastly, he quits his job by the encouragement the girls give him. “I just saunter into the electric eye in my white shirt…” (302). The “electric eye” means a new view and a new perspective on what he is seeing right now on the rule system which helps him to quit at the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    There are many conflicts in A & P, but the main one being between Sammy and the supermarket manager. Lengel thinks that the girls are dressed inappropriate. He confronts them about their skimpy attire, embarrassing them causing Sammy to get angry. Sammy’s reaction to this was that he decides to quit, he quits not only to prove a point to the manager, but also to impress the girls. At the end when he leaves the store in hopes to see the girls, he comes to realize they are nowhere to be…

    • 826 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “A&P” by John Updike describes the reasonable decision to quit the job by Sammy. Sammy is nineteen-year-old cashier at A&P, grocery store. He does not like his job but he was doing this job due to his parents. He quit his job on the day when three girls walked into the store wearing swimsuits. Sammy was watching the girls and observing the behavior of customers. The Lengel who was the manager at store humiliated “Queenie” about her clothes in front of everyone. Sammy quit his job on the spot in the honor of girl. I think he quit job because he does not like it and, he also wanted to prove to girls and himself that he can be independent man who does not like to take orders. By quitting his job, he also gained the sense of self which is more…

    • 148 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The rules of employment for any job play an important role for anyone, but Sammy decided to ignore the rules he thought was pointless in hopes of the girls not thinking he was a square for enforcing the store policy. Because of the three girls walking in wearing nothing but bathing suits, instead of him telling them to cover-up or leave, he says to himself," the one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece. She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-dash looking can with those two crescents of white just under it." He shows his disregard for the establishment he is working for by ignoring customers in his line due to erotic thoughts of the young women in bathing suits. Other than being attentive to the task at hand, he ends up scanning " the no eyebrow witch's HiHo crackers twice." Also in Sammy's immature ideas he says, " women generally put on a shirt, shorts, or something before they get out of the car, but these women usually have six children and varicose veins." Sammy himself chooses whom the rules should or should not apply to when in all actuality the rules should be administered to every customer.…

    • 842 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The readers are to view Sammy as a typical teenager: indifferent to those around him (except to queenie) and yet, markedly self-conscious. He proves to be an observant narrator, allowing the reader farther inspection into our protagonist. We see Sammy drink in the details of the three girls; he pays close attention to the textures of their suits, their facial features, and tan lines. However, Sammy goes beyond what he physically observes and attempts to glean what their lives are like outside of A&P. What he sees, is attractive and his appetite for association has a distinct influence over his future decisions. This is drives his observations to become detrimentally tunnelled. As Sammy dismisses A&P customers and co-workers and quits, he is…

    • 197 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    As seen in the story “A&P” the first sentence reads “In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits.” After reading that sentence I was captivated and found myself reading on. It wasn’t only the mere mention of girls in bathing suits,…

    • 457 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    He is stuck in a dull world, with the "sheep" and the "freeloaders". His compares himself to his co-worker, Stokesie, by claiming "Stokesie 's married, with two babies chalked up on his fuselage already, but as far as I can tell that 's the only difference". (Kirszner & Mandell, 127). Stokesie 's goal is to become the manager of the store. If Sammy continued on his course at the A & P, he took would end up just like Stokesie. Sammy wants to be free spirited, he wants to break rules. When the store manager, Lengel, approaches the girls and confronts them for wearing swimsuits, Sammy begins to break free of his dull world. He wants to show the girls that he does not stand with Lengel, he stands with them. He quits quickly and without thought, saying "I quit" loud enough for the girls to hear them. He wants them to hear him, he wants them to realize that he is not one of the store workers, not one of the sheep or the…

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the short story of “A&P” Sammy is a hormone driven young teenager who is attracted to three young girls that walk into his store on a slow day in nothing more than a suggestive swim suit. In a hormone…

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sammy’s attitudes toward the customer show him as an immature young man. Sammy’s comments and how he described customers as being old, dull, and unable to relate to young people. He addressed the first customer he comes across as “one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch of about fifty with rouge on how cheekbone and no eyebrow, and I know it made her day to trip me up”. He also described them as a “sheep pushing their carts down the aisle”. Through Sammy’s attitude toward the customers, we can say that his tired of regular customer, regular customers including these older married women, with kids, the overweight lady, and the old ladies who spend years trying to catch an error by cashier. We can simply see his immaturity and he does not particularly care for the customers.…

    • 883 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Upon the girl’s entry, he describes their physical appearances in extensive detail. The “chunky one with a good tan”, the “tall one with black hair that hadn't quite frizzed right”, and the “queen” with the “long white prima donna legs” and bathing suit straps “looped loose around the cool tops of her arms”. From the amount of detail he used to describe the girls, I deducted that this was a distracting sight to him, along with the rest of the store’s customers who stared at them in disbelief.…

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sammy is working at low-end job during the summer to make his parents happy and earn some extra cash. He notices that his co-worker, Stokesie, is already married with kids at the age of 22 with small plans of becoming manager some day. This job isn’t the most exciting thing in the world, and Sammy probably doesn’t have plans to work there his whole life like Stokesie, so he isn’t very enthusiastic when he describes his job. Sammy’s epiphany comes to him as he watches the girls get humiliated by a middle-aged man and just before he utters his resignation. He does not quit solely to stand up for the girls and present himself as a hero. At that moment he realizes just how ridiculous his whole situation is because he doesn’t belong there. He does not belong in a store with a 22 year old with very little ambitions, or with a manager who teaches sunday school, and thinks that girls in bathing suits should go to hell instead of enter his store. He even refers to himself as an “unsuspected hero” and says, “and my stomach kind of fell as i felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.” He’s finally free and understands the struggles that will come from not living his life…

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Updike portrays Sammy, the main character in the short story “A & P” as a naïve boy of nineteen who views the people of society, i.e. his customers, as “sheep pushing their carts down the asle” (Updike 226). Part of the irony of the story is the contrast between the ending, where everything seems routine (including the customers), and the beginning, with Sammy’s impulsive decision. He quits his job (he says) in order to present himself as a “hero” to the swimsuit-clad girls who disrupt the usual pattern of the “sheep-like” customers. Sammy metaphorically describes his customers as animals, showing little respect towards them and depicting them as “sheep pushing their carts” and “scared pigs in a chute” (226, 228). In turn, he rejects society’s idea of normalcy and tries to escape it by quitting his job as a cashier at the A & P. As quoted by Corey Evan Thompson, “[Sammy is] a young man who takes full advantage of an opportunity to free himself from the responsibility-filled life that he desperately wants to avoid” (216). One could come to a conclusion that Sammy is portrayed somewhat as a rebel because of his wanting to break away from society and its “normal” behavior. As…

    • 1701 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sammy's gesture does not have the results for which he hopes. Upon exiting the A&P, he realizes that the girls are gone, and he looks back to see the store manager taking control of the abandoned register. It suddenly occurs to Sammy that he is on his own now, that his parents, who got him the job at the A&P, will not support his decision and will surely not do him any more favors.…

    • 635 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A&P John Updike - Essay 2

    • 1019 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Throughout the story, there is a major focus on Sammy's observations of others. Sammy is a young cashier at a grocery store whose personality reflects immaturity and insecurity. When three teenage girls enter the store, it is clear that all men are watching closely as they strut the store in bathing suits. The store is "right in the middle of town, and if you stand at our front doors you can see two banks and the Congregational church and the newspaper store and three real-estate offices" which lets us know that the store is in a conservative area, where bathing suits in public are definitely frowned upon. The girls become objects of desire as Sammy observes their every move. He feels the need to describe the three girls and sort of place himself on a pedestal as he judges them. His focus is solely on the girls and he makes a mistake ringing up a customer but he pawns it off like it was the woman’s fault for being a ‘’witch”. His co-worker, Stokesie plays with Sammy as they joke about how pretty the girls are. All of this playfulness and desire leads Sammy to ponder the thought that Stokesie is beneath him. He is only three years older and is already married with two kids. He starts to talk down…

    • 1019 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story is set in a small New England town, and it is an average day. Three young girls enter the store where Sammy, a young cashier, works. He watches and analyzes their every move, and tries to guess their personalities based on body language. Sammy identifies the leader girl as “Queenie,” and takes most interest in her. The girls are only dressed in bathing suits, and gain the attention of the other men working in the store as well. This causes tension between the male characters, and causes Sammy to wonder about his own future in comparison to his male peers. Sammy does not like seeing the girls being objectified. The manager kicks the girls out based on their inappropriate attire. In an unexpected response and strange attempt to honor the girls, Sammy quits the job, and leaves the store, but immediately is overwhelmed by the uncertain consequences his actions will bring.…

    • 2050 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    John Updike a&P

    • 1214 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Sammy had the same day-in, day-out job that many people before him had and many more will continue to have. The job was a way of life for him. He didn’t like the work, but he needed the occasional and sparse paychecks. Throughout the course of Sammy’s job at the A&P, he noticed and observed many different types of interesting people. One day, in the midst of Sammy’s monotonous pounding of cash register keys at his check-out slot; his eyes wandered off and gazed at three striking young girls that walked into the A&P.…

    • 1214 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays