A&P

In the short story “A&P,” John Updike uses a “have I got a story for you” dialog mixed with an exceptional array of teenage jargon, to paint a wonderful picture of Sammy. I think using a seventeen year old aids Updike immensely as he paints a picture of non-conformity, which I feel is his overall motive. My reasoning for this revolves around the fact that he writes about a beautiful swimsuit clad girl in an every-day grocery store, where you are expected to be clothed. By placing a scantily dressed, barefoot girl against a backdrop of dull conformists one can see the opposing thoughts that Sammy has about normality. Updike also alludes to the regular customers as “sheep” in more than one instance (221, paragraph 5; 223, paragraph 20), which insinuates they need to be led. Sammy’s epiphany is his realization that he doesn’t want to adhere to the rules and become a dull supervisor. I feel he realizes this when his manager, Lengel, goes out of his way to scold the girls for not being properly dressed. Sammy wants to portray himself as a hero to these pretty girls so he quits his job while they can still hear. Sammy’s disdain for what he could become if he stayed around (Lengel) could also be a major reason he quits.