Alvin Brown
Mr. Wylie
English 102
02/26/14
Innocence to Experience Growing up is not an easy process. We all may face problems or difficulties, and things almost never go our way. In the short story ‘’A&P’’ by John Updike, the hormone driven teenager Sammy who becomes mesmerized my three girls who walks in wearing ‘’nothing but bathing suits’’ (131). As a result, his imagination begins to run wild. He allows the provocatively dressed young girls to affect his judgment and he makes a decision that he will soon regret. He will eventually find out that with age comes experience, but it will then be too late. The major literary devices Updike uses in the short story are characterization and symbolism. It was a normal, hot, summer day in a small town while at work ‘’A&P Super Market’’ in she walks. ‘’She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs’’ (131). He has already analyzed her entire body in just moments of her entering the store. Sammy then goes beyond measures to gain the attention from the young lady, Queenie. He follows the girls with his eyes from the register all the way around the store. ‘’The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle—the girls were walking against the usual traffic’’ (132). He feels as if the people of his small town are accustomed to doing the same things day in and day out. The girls are then approached by the store manager ‘’Lengel’’. Lengel disapproves of the girl’s choice of apparel to come into the store. Sammy feels as if the girls are just fine and Lengel is just picking with them because of their physical appearances. Sammy doesn’t want Lengel to embarrass the girls, but Lengel feels as if he is only doing his job.