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Literary Analysis Of A & P By John Updike

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John Updike is known for his fictional stories showing an understanding realistic chronicle of the changing morals and manners of American society. In his story “A&P,” the narrator is nineteen-year-old Sammy. Sammy is a cashier at the “A&P Supermarket.” He tells us the story of three young girls that walk in the store wearing only their bathing suits. Sammy admires the girls from afar as soon as they walk in, but he especially has eyes for the leader of the three girls the most. The manager of the supermarket, Lengel, starts to criticize the young females. This causes them to start feeling embarrassed. To save themselves from anymore negative attention and humiliation, they try to leave the store as quickly as they can. As soon as they walk …show more content…

He openly confesses that he hopes that he says it quickly enough so maybe the girls would hear him. He bluntly tells us maybe the girls will stop and watch their unsuspected hero (Updike 134). It seems as if Sammy wants this incident to be a like a “fairy tale.” In this case, Sammy plays the part of the brave hero; the girls are the helpless princesses that are waiting to be saved by their true love and hero. And, of course, Lengel is the evil villain. In most fairy tales, the hero is trying to save the princess from the evil villain. Sammy gets his hopes up that the three young, attractive girls are admiring him for doing something so “brave.” At this point, Sammy just quit his job as a cashier at “A&P Supermarket,” and he walks out to catch up with the girls to find out if he won their attention and admiration. He looks around for the girls and to his surprise; they are nowhere to be seen. Sammy admits that his stomach drops as soon as he realizes how difficult the world is going to be from now on. Not only did Sammy never see the girls again, but because he wanted to grab their attention, he was now jobless. This happened because he was trying to be ignorant and petty while attempting to prove a point, which later came back to seek revenge on

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