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Conflict In Yann Martel's A & P

995 Words4 Pages

"A&P" is a short story that involves a young man, Sammy(the protagonist), who works in a supermarket. Nothing more than a nineteen years old doing his usual day work at the local supermarket. Three girls in bikinis walk in and catch Sammy 's attention. When they walk in Sammy does not think of them more than just airheads. Sammy then pays close attention to one of the girls. He remembers the details of her like the back of his hand, and he decides to call her Queenie. All Sammy does is notice her. He does not talk to her, he does not want to check-out her items, he does not want to even look at her when she is looking. All he can do is think about Queenie and what it is like to be with her, and her family. The manager, Lengel, comes out to talk …show more content…

Everything in the store was fine and casual until the girls walk in. "I bet you could set off dynamite in an A & P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists and muttering "Let me see, there was a third thing, began with A, asparagus, no, ah, yes, applesauce!" or whatever it is they do mutter. But there was no doubt, this jiggled them. A few house-slaves in pin curlers even looked around after pushing their carts past to make sure what they had seen was correct."(Updike, 16). The main conflict of the story is between Manager Lengel vs. The girls. "That 's all right," Lengel said. But this isn 't the beach..." "We weren 't doing any shopping. We just came in for the one thing..." Queenie said."That makes no difference," "We want you decently dressed when you come in here." says Lengel."We are decent," Queenie says suddenly, her lower lip pushing, getting sore now that she remembers her place, a place from which the crowd that runs the A & P must look pretty crummy."(Updike, 18). When the girls first walked in they started conflict with just the customers, then the conflict led to Lengel, then it proceeded to both the customers and Lengel. During the conflict Sammy does not get affected by it or have put at stake. During the time of the Lengel vs. the Girls, Sammy has not even talked to the girls yet; nothing was at stake

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