Updike’s Authentic “A & P”

Mark Eisenberg

Mr. Coon

AP English IV

September 21, 2008

In his “A & P,” John Updike paints an accurate portrait of a young man caught between youth and adulthood. The narrator, Sammy, still has the sarcastic irreverent attitude that is the hallmark of teens the world over. He very clearly does not think his actions through. However, he is taking on the task of working at the local A & P and is moving into the world of adult responsibility.

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of Updike’s story is the authentic tone of Sammy’s inner thoughts. Bored with his job as a cashier, Sammy makes up labels for each of the people in the store. He explains that “in walks three girls,” (15) walks, not walk. To Sammy, they are an indivisible unit. His pithy descriptions convey a great deal of information about each person in the A & P and the reader feels that he or she truly knows even the most minor of characters.

First, there is Stokesie, the twenty-two year old married man at the next register, who still enjoys joking with Sammy about the allure of the girls, even with two children at home. Then there is the “witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows,” (15) who enjoys berating Sammy for his mistake, and who would have been burned at the stake if she’d been born at the right time. “Queenie,” (16) the pretty girl who exudes confident superiority and arrogant wealth, struts around the store barefoot with her straps down looking for expensive things to buy, while Sammy’s eyes are glued to her. Permanently attached to the queen are her two followers who lack the confidence of their leader, “peeking around and making their shoulders round” (15). McMahon wearily stands at the meat counter where Sammy imagines that he views the entire world through the lens of a butcher, even admiring the girls by “sizing up their joints” (16). Finally, there is Lenger, the religious store manager who haggles with the produce supplier and scuttles about the store righting moral wrongs. Through Sammy’s descriptions, the reader gains a sense of the dreary boredom that overcomes the store in the slow hours. It is these simple, yet revealing descriptions by Updike that make “A & P” so memorable. The issues of consumerism, socio-economic background, religion, and modernity are of secondary importance. The relationships between the characters are what drive this story.

Sammy’s realization that he wants to quit, and his impulsive decision to do so based in part on a desire to impress the girls show his immaturity. He feels that he cannot take back what he has said because “once you begin a gesture, it’s fatal not to go through with it” (19). However, Sammy is clearly bored and unhappy with his job. He wants a change in his life; and the girls give him an excuse to make one. He knows that this is an important decision that he will feel for the rest of his life, and just how “hard the world was going to be” (19) from then on, but the certainty of his earlier words and the fact that he has been working for a close family friend demonstrate that Sammy may, in fact, need a chance to assert his independence. When Lengel asserts that he thinks Sammy doesn’t know what he’s doing, he replies that “I know you don’t. But I do” (19). Sammy may have made a rash decision, but he has finally taken an active role in deciding the course of his life.

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