Professor Gonzalez
English 102 OAC
6 October 20

A&P
In John Updike’s story “A&P” the main character a typical teenage boy named Sammy working at the checkout counter loses his job, after the manger speaks disparagingly to three teenage girls about the way they were dress. In this story the contrast is clearly shown been the conformist and non-conformists in the store. The setting takes place in a A&P grocery store in a small conservative but conventional New England town, where three teenage girls enters and disrupt the status quote, by being free spirited, individualists and go against the grain expected in the store. As pointed out by the narrator Sammy they walked up the isle in the opposite direction of traffic, not that we had one way in the store. When the girl’s entered the store, Sammy immediately notices them and focuses all his attention on them. He begins to fantasize about them, both sexually and about their lives and status in society. Not only does Sammy notices these girls but other staff members and shoppers, Sammy refers to these as “sheep’s”, everyone was disturbed by these girls. The older clerk started patting his mouth and sizing up the girls. There was an undertone of sexuality all about. The sheep’s reacted in amazement in regard the girl’s state of dress. As the tension develops, the manager, Mr. Langel, finally notices the girls state of dress and approaches them at the checkout counter. He addresses them by saying” this is not the beach” he scolds them implying there was a certain dress code and they had violated it. Sammy who feels protective and possessive of the girls forces a crisis and objects to the way the manger addresses them. He mumbles” I quit”. He says to Mr. Langel “you didn’t have to embarrass them”. But Langel in turn states “they were the one embarrassing us”. The manager tries to convince Sammy not to quit, saying it would harm him in the end and what about his parents, but Sammy felt he had to follow through with his decision. In the story’s resolution, Sammy realizes he made a mistake in impulsively quitting his job, because he didn’t get what he expected, when he went outside looking for the girls. He realized how quitting his job would affect him, but he did not regret it, he realized that confining oneself to other peoples view or even the view of society would be condemning oneself to being ordinary or as one of the sheep’s he normally saw in the A& P. Theme in the store focused on different things such as appearances, power, principles, gender, and lease off all society and class.