A AND P

by John Updike

Segovia, Lecia Sole S.

Ripalda, Jed
PLOT
 Exposition: The three girls in bathing suits walk into the grocery
store. Sammy, the cashier notices the three girls enter the store.

 Rising Action: Everyone was watching the girls walk through the
store as their outfits were indecent and against social norms.
 Conflict: Lengel confronts the girls about their appearance, asking them to
dress decently when they come in to shop which embarrasses the girls.

 Climax – As the girls leave the store, Sammy defends the girls from Lengel
and protests the way he talked to them and ultimately led him to quit his job.

 Falling Action – Sammy faces the consequences of his action and realizes how
hard his future is going to be.
CHARACTERS
SAMMY
Sammy, the narrator of the story, sarcastically observes the customers of A&P
from his standpoint behind the cash registers. He's technically an adult at 19
years of age, but he still relates to the teenage girls who walk into the store, and
he reacts to Lengel's authority with youthful rebellion. However, as a blue-collar
worker, he has to face more uncertainties and fears about the future than the
girls do, and he finds himself dreading the adult consequences of his actions at
the end of the story.
QUEENIE
Queenie is the leader of the group of three girls who walk into the store in
their bathing suits. Unlike the others, Queenie is unabashed and self-assured,
walking deliberately through the store in a suit with her straps down. Sammy
describes her as "more than pretty." When Lengel reprimands her for wearing
just a bathing suit into the store, however, her self-confidence wavers slightly,
and her response—that she's getting herring snacks for her mother—reveals her
youth. It's also clear to Sammy that Queenie belongs to a higher socioeconomic
class than he does.
LENGEL
Lengel is the A&P's manager. Also a Sunday school teacher, he runs the A&P
with a watchful eye, and Sammy describes him as "dreary." Lengel acts as a
kind of force for conformity, and reprimands the girls for wearing their bathing
suits into the store, embarrassing Queenie and, ultimately, causing Sammy to
quit.
STOKESIE
Stokesie (or just Stokes) is Sammy's 22-year-old married coworker. He has two
kids and hopes to be manager of the A&P one day.
THE TWO OTHER GIRLS
Sammy has described them as,
 “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.”

 “…there was this one, with one of those chubby berry-faces, the lips all
bunched together under her nose, this one, and a tall one, with black hair that
hadn't quite frizzed right, and one of these sunburns right across under the
eyes, and a chin that was too long -- you know, the kind of girl other girls think
is very "striking" and "attractive" but never quite makes it, as they very well
know, which is why they like her so much”
SETTING
North of Boston, in A and P grocery five miles from
beach, in the middle of the town.

1960’s
POINT OF VIEW
POINT OF VIEW
The story was narrated by Sammy. It greatly
affected the plot and theme.

The story was told in first person point of view.

THEMES
GROWING UP
Sammy is a 19-year-old which leaves him in a standpoint between adulthood
and adolescence, since he can defend the girls when they were being
embarrassed by Lengel and relate to the girls when they face authority.

Sammy’s impulsive act of quitting is a youthful act, inspired by his connection

with the girls, but when he saw the consequences of his actions, he realized that
he wasn’t young anymore like the girls, but instead, an adult which had to face
the consequences of his impulsive act.
SEX, GENDER, AND POWER
 The moment the girls walk into the store, their sexuality asserts power in a way
that they capture the attention of the employees and store-goers. The girls are
seemingly aware of the power they have over them, but they act oblivious
towards it.

As Lengel accuses the girls for being indecent, he also says that the girls’ attire
are deviant from the social norms and that the girls’ sexuality itself is indecent.
Lengel ultimately blames the girls for men’s sexual desire for them. At the end,
Sammy tries to defend to seem as if he was their “unsuspected hero”.
APPEARANCE AND INNER
LIVES
Sammy has the tendency to judge people based on their appearances, what they
purchase, and how they act. The first half of the story just consists of Sammy
describing the girls.

At the end of the story, Sammy does not quite understand why he quit. The
reason is that, he believed that just because he sees the appearance and actions
of the customers, that he is able to understand the inner lives of those people.
But he himself, does not understand his own inner self.
INDIVIDUALISM AND ETHICS
When Sammy quits, he asserts his individualism. The other characters in the
story all follow someone or some code of conduct. Lengel blindly enforces the
policies of the store and social norms without being able to explain why they
exist, only to respond, "This isn't the beach.“
Sammy admires the willingness and braveness of the girls to break social norms,
even if the cause of their actions is just a prank or game, than challenging the
social norms. With a further comment on individualism at the end of the story,
Sammy realizes how hard the world would be on him and to anyone to tries to
resists the norms.
 HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND
"A&P" was written in 1961, when American consumer culture reflected postwar
prosperity, and the increasing use of automobiles had pushed more families to
embrace a suburban lifestyle. In the Fifties, this prosperity gave way, for the first
time, to a distinct youth culture of rebellion and disregard for authority,
documented in films (Rebel Without a Cause, 1955) and books (The Catcher in
the Rye, 1951) that likely influenced Updike's "A&P," a story about conformity
and questioning authority. Despite the prosperity of the postwar era, however, a
significant minority of Americans continued to live in poverty by the end of the
Fifties, and "A&P" also documents this inequality in the class differences
between the story's characters. The Cold War is also referenced in the story,
when the narrator, Sammy, imagines that the A&P will be owned by Russians in
1990 (LitChart)
SURFACE
ANALYSIS
 LITERARY
CRITICISMS
FEMINISM
Sammy had objectified and stereotyped the girls as soon as they entered the
store. Furthermore, as he attempted to defend the girls from Lengel, he had
objectified them even more, deeming the girls as passive and helpless,
seemingly needing the help of Sammy, which they do not.

“The girls, and who'd blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say "I quit" to
Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they'll stop and watch me, their
unsuspected hero.”
MARXISM
When an elderly woman hassles him for mistakenly ringing up something twice,
he likens her to a pig and describes her as “a witch about fifty,” and says “if
she’d been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem,”
(Updike 300). Reading this for the first time the audience may get the
impression that Sammy is disrespectful and rude. However, if one were to look
at this from a Marxist perspective it would be a more accurate to assume that
Sammy’s comment is highlighting his disdain for the regimented nature of the
older woman’s generation.
STRUCTURALISM
BATHING SUITS

The bathing suits, in contrast to the regular attire of the housewives and other
"sheep" who enter the store, draw attention to the girls' sexuality, which
Sammy immediately takes note of. As the other employees and customers react
to the girls, however, their bathing suits begin to symbolize a sort of freedom to
Sammy, who finds it exciting that the girls flout the norms of social conduct.
When Lengel reprimands the girls and accuses them of indecency, the bathing
suits take on a different tint, akin more to sexual shame or, more accurately,
sexual shaming.
"Girls, I don't want to argue with you.
After this come in here with your
shoulders covered. It's our policy."
HERRING SNACKS

When Sammy hears that Queenie is purchasing the Kingfish Fancy Herring

Snacks in Pure Sour Cream for her mother, he immediately imagines the kind of
gathering at which these snacks might be served and contrasts the image with
the kind of parties his own parents throw. He recognizes that Queenie comes
from a higher socioeconomic class than he does, and that to her, "the crowd that
runs the A&P must look pretty crummy." This class difference also contributes
to the feeling of foreboding Sammy has about his future at the end of the story.
"My mother asked me to pick up a jar of herring snacks." […]All of
a sudden I slid right down her voice into her living room. Her father
and the other men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow
ties and the women were in sandals picking up herring snacks on
toothpicks off a big plate and they were all holding drinks the color
of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them.
SHEEP

Sammy refers to both the shoppers in the A&P and the two girls with Queenie as
followers, or "sheep." Sheep, for Sammy, symbolize people who just follow the
flock, unthinkingly doing what everybody else does. Sheep are symbols of the
ultimate, most blind conformity. But it's really boring when everybody acts and
dresses the same way – Sammy craves difference.
“The sheep pushing their carts down the
aisle – the girls were walking against the
usual traffic…”