"A & P" - John Updike

2. Sammy is very fully described and shown - having the story told from his own point of view helps with that tremendously. His little "asides" about girls, the A & P, the usual customers, etc. add a touch of humor that really help you get inside his mind, and see how he sees things. While a writer could have made him seem less the hero for wanting the girls to notice what he did, the writer does a good job of making us sympathize with this desire of his, and actually relate to it - I mean, who hasn't done something with the thought of being noticed in the back of their mind? Especially a young man, trying to impress a group of young girls. And yet, because he still chooses to do the right thing, even though they don't notice him, we see that he is still truly the hero. He is portrayed much more fully than the doctor in "Godfather Death" - the story being in first person gives us great insight into who he is, whereas the doctor was described very briefly and impersonally.

3. The exposition is the entire part before he states "Now here comes the sad part . . ." It mostly describes the girls, sets the scene of the A & P for us, and gives us a good understanding of Sammy himself. Very valuable - if she had not been so fully described, we as readers may have had a hard time understanding why he chose to quit his job over this incident. But because the author gives us this description of what Sammy thinks of her, we can see his motivation.

5. The dramatic conflict becomes apparent when he says, "Then everybody's luck begins to run out," and the manager enters the scene. The crisis comes at the moment the manager challenges the girls about wearing their swimsuits. And the climax occurs when the manager tells him that he doesn't want to do this to his parents - at which point Sammy punches the No Sale tab and walks out the door.

6. On the surface, we see that Sammy quits because of the way Lengel treated the girls. But, because of his description of Lengel, we get the impression that this isn't a one-time, isolated incident and that maybe there is a deeper reason. We can see that he already has some sort of tension between him and Lengel, and that this was just the turning point when he finally decided to do something about it. Well . . . it's either that, or the fact that he is just tired of the monotony of his job, and ready to move on in life - and this incident gives him a reason, or excuse, to do so. I can't decide which it is. :)

8. Sammy is going to have a lot to deal with because of this. For one, he is 19 years old and out of a job. Also, Lengel indicated that his parents wouldn't be pleaseed with his decision (whether just because of disappointment, or for financial reasons, we don't really know). Mostly though, we see that he has truly become a man, and entered the adult world. From here on out, he will face this kind of "moral dilema," and in each one will again have to decide whether to follow his conscience and do the right thing, or to ignore it and do the easy thing. To be aware of this is what maturity is all about, but it's definitely not going to make his life any easier.


I'm not sure whether I really like this story. I definitely like the story itself, but the telling of it was a little hard to follow. Because Sammy is narrating, some of his random thoughts that get thrown in make it hard to focus on what's really happening. But . . . as these random thoughts and his strange way of saying things add to and develop his character, I guess I can't complain. The word that best describes(or at least the one I think that best describes) this story and it's style is "casual."