A&P

The story "A & P" by John Updike, narrates the experience of a 19yr old grocery clerk, called Sammy. Three girls walked into the A&P grocery store during his shift. The girls wore nothing but bathing suites.Sammy notices that they don't have shoes on. He takes another look at the girl in the green bathing suit. He scrutinizes her suit and decides that it must be new because it still has sharp seams in the bust. He then turns his attention to the girl next to her. Immediately, he is not attracted to her, but he thinks that she is the type of female other girls would call striking. I believe this story is about feminist protest.Sammy’s epiphany is his belief that people should be allowed to be to be frivolous when they want to. They should be able to come into a store in bathing suits to buy snacks, and they should be able to turn heads when they do it. Young men should be able to be attracted to young women without feeling guilty, and when they do, society should be able to withstand the trend. On the contrary, it was the opposite with his boss who thought it to be against societal norms, and causing them embarassments. Sammy's epiphany also manifested in the last sentence of the story, where he realizes, as he walks away from the store, "how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter" -- but it will only be hard in the sense that he will forever be forced to buck the Lengels of the world, who will outnumber him a thousand to one.