A&P BY JOHN UPDIKE

SUMMARY
The story “A&P” is a short story about a young boy called Sammy. He is nineteen years old. He works at supermarket. He rings and bags customer’s groceries up. One day three girls come and they wear only bikini, they even don’t wear shoes. Sammy finds these girls attractive, but the manager, Lengster disapproves their dresses. Because their dresses are not appropriate to come shopping, he asks them to leave the store. Sammy thinks that his behaviour is embarrassing and he quits his job.
POINT OF VIEW
The story is narrated by first person narration because we learn everything from perspective of main character. At the same time, he directly says us his thoughts.
THE SETTING
The story is set in an A&P supermarket Time is about the year 1960.
CHARACTER
Sammy: He is a boy and not exactly individual. He is only nineteen and wants to prove himself. The girls give him an opportunity to express himself. He wants to rebel against his surroundings. He wants to reject society. He realizes that only he can change his life and quits job. At the same time he knows that life is not easy for him and he says “I felt how hard the world was going to be to me here after.” He comes from a middle-class family. We can understand from that when his parents have somebody over they get “lemonade.”
ANALYSIS
Sheep: Sammy wants to prove that he doesn’t think like everybody. In their town women generally put on a shirt or shorts or something before they get out of the car into street, but girls only dress “bikini”. Sammy knows that people disapprove their dress and Lengel says them to leave the store. In general people like his behaviour, but Sammy doesn’t and he quits his job to prove that he is not sheep. Briefly he wants to say us he thinks, he doesn’t live according to traditions or taboo.
Witch: Sammy is so attracted by girls that he can not remember if he rang crackers up or not and he rings them up again. When his customer realizes this she talks him loudly. Because treatment is not understanding and nice, he says her “witch”.
Bikini: Three girls wear bikini although they go to market. Maybe they want to say “We are free girl and we don’t think like you, our viewpoints are different from yours and we don’t wear like common women.
Quits his job: He quits his job because he likes girls and he wants to show them he stands up for them and he does what he believes. At the same time he thinks himself “Unsuspected hero” because he wants to attract them to his courage.
There is the most important reason to quit his job. He understands that his life goes on routinely. He will spend his entire life at the store if he does not soon quit his job. He realizes that he will not be promoted. Maybe he will be only manager like Stokesie. When we think his age there are many things he can do. Briefly he does not want to spend his life working at store.