“Bathing Suits” Setting helps contribute to the insight, knowledge and understanding to the meaning of many stories. In the short story “A & P” by John Updike, the setting plays a large part to the understanding of why the “three girls” in “bathing suits” are so criticized and judged. The main character Sammy, a cashier worker, sees the three girls walk in the A and P in “nothing but bathing suits” and instantly takes interest and starts checking out the girls. The reason him and others take sudden interest in the girls is because they are not dressed for the place, the social environment, or the time period they are in. Being in an A and P grocery store is usually not the place for someone to be wearing bathing suits. Especially since this A and P is in the “middle of town” and it is “five miles from the beach”. Most of the time “women generally put on a shirt or shorts” before they go …show more content…
The normal social environment of this store in this quaint town is “women with six children and varicose veins mapping their legs,” (2). Also,“A few house slaves in pin curlers even looked around after pushing their carts past to make sure what they seen was correct,” (2) again the girls drew a lot of attention to themselves. This is another reason why these girls looked like a circus act walking into the A and P. Since they really did not fit in with how it worked in that social environment which led to a bigger scene. An example is while the girls were going through the aisles the “sheep” pushed their carts down the way they always do and the girls walked against the “usual traffic”. This goes to show the girls were going against/ rebelling against the normal society just like they did wearing swimming suits instead of the normal clothes. All these things they did really brought attention to them and made them the main event at the