A & P by John Updike

 

John Updike's short story "A & P" is about division of class. The story is spoken by the main character Sammy as first person. Sammy is a 19-years old boy who work as a cashier in an A&P store. He sees three young girls wearing bathing suits who walk inside the store and starts observing them. The store manager Lengel walks in and expresses his dissatisfaction towards the outfits of the girls and tries to offense them by calling them indecent. This is where the story takes a turning point. The girls rebel against the manager. Sammy did that too but it was very much heavier for him than it was on the girls.

Also, Lengel is the one who unnecessarily insulted the girls. Sammy is more of an open and ambitious one. He, in fact, quits his job for standing up against L Engel. Lengal represents the rigidity and conservativeness of the society. The way describes the girls, especially the leader one that he refers as "Queenie", we can see that he is fascinated towards them. All these thoughts of Sammy indicate that the life of these girls is the life that Sammy wishes for himself.

"A&P" is a short story by Toni Morrison. In it, the main character, Sammy, quits his job because he is offended by Lengel's criticism of the girls. One of the main themes of the story is class. Sammy is stuck in the working class. There is no strong background behind him as a backup. This means he is replaceable from the very moment he quits. "My stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter"- this is how he acknowledges his troubles from this point.

Comments

  1. RickyDecember 20, 2020 at 7:44 AM

    Good blog post. I liked how you said "All these thoughts of Sammy indicate that the life of these girls is the life that Sammy wishes for himself," which kind of speaks of Sammy already being sick of his manager before the girls even showed up. And that this incident just triggered Sammy to finally stand against his manager. As you said, Sammy wished he had the life of these girls to "own" themselves fully.

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