A & P By John Updike Analysis Essay

A&P Literary Analysis by John Updike

In A&P by John Updike, Sammy may be analyzed in terms of the place he comes into contact with, with a customer giving him a hard time as the three girls in bathing suits walk in. Later on, when the three girls walk to the cash register where Sammy is at to get rung up and Lengel comes to tell them their “policy.” Last when Sammy quits his job at A&P grocery store. Sammy is still and adolescent in the process of entering adulthood but this story brings the process of adulthood into an entertain twist. At the beginning of the story, Sammy is ringing a woman up who when the three girls in bathing suits walk in he can’t recall if he rung up the woman’s HiHo crackers.

Sammy had said it loud and quick enough to try to get the girls to hear him as if he was some sort of hero or something. Obviously they were in a rush to leave they didn’t hear. But Sammy was more angry at the fact that Lengel embarrassed the girls, more angry that he felt that Lengel insulted his dream to be sort of like them, the quick dream he had created when he saw the girls at the grocery store. Lengel said “ you will regret doing this, you don’t want to do this to your mom and dad, you will feel this for the rest of your life.” Lengel had known Sammy’s parents for a long time. Knowing that Lengel help Sammy get the job at A&P because he knew his parents. Sammy seat his uniform on the counter top were the cash register is, and walked out, hoping he would see the girls, but they were gone, of course. As he looked back at the store window thinking to himself if he had made the right decision but he said to himself “it seems to me that once you begin a gesture its fatal not to go through with it.” Sammy knew that from here in out that the world would be harder for him. But he felt proud of himself even though the girls didn’t see him because he felt like he took his first adult