“A&P” Is a Comic Short Story Written by John Updike Essay Example

his parents, Sammy feels "that once you begin a gesture, it's fatal not to go through with it" (196). He acts decisively, but the girls have disappeared from the parking lot by the time he exits the store. In practical terms, Sammy's action has gained him nothing and cost him everything, but his narrative affirms his gesture as a liberating form of dissent, (M.

Gilbert Porter discusses Sammy's dissent as Emersonian nonconformity: Porter 1155-58. ) Sammy does not see how he could have done otherwise, though he finds himself at odds with the only society he knows, sure that "the world will be hard to me, hereafter" (Updike 238). The time of year in the story illustrates the old generation versus a new generation. The narrator states that the way the young ladies were dressed isn’t normally how they dress in the “A;P” a very respectable supermarket.

Sammy notices everyone’s expression towards the girls while they walk the aisles like when he says, “The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle-the girls were walking against traffic (not that we have one-way signs or anything) were pretty hilarious. You could see them, when Queenie’s white shoulders dawned on them, kind of jerk, or hop, or hiccup, but their eyes snapped back to their own baskets and on they pushed” (Updike 235).

Another way the regular customers were so shocked how Queenie and her friends were dressed they had to take a second glare at them, “A few house slaves in pin curlers even looked around pushing their carts past to make sure what they had seen was correct. ” (Updike 235). The mood

of the story is informal/rebellious that it illustrates that the “A;P” is an uptight supermarket and everything has to be done the right way. Like for example when Sammy rings an item up twice and he gets chewed out by one of the customers, “I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell.

She is one of those cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day to trip me up” (Updike 234). Mr. Lengel the manager at the “A;P” was the first to mention to Queenie and her friends that their attire was not acceptable in the supermarket by saying, “Girls, this isn’t the beach. Girls, I don’t want to argue with you. After this come in here with your shoulders covered. It’s our policy” (Updike 237). The characters in the short story illustrates the different rebellious moments in the story.

Like for example, when Queenie shows the reader she doesn’t care what people think about her or has to say when she enters the supermarket with a two piece bikini, “Walking to the A;P with your straps down, I suppose it’s the only kind of face you can have. She held her head so high her neck, coming up out of those white shoulders, looked kind of stretched” (Updike 235). When Sammy tells Mr. Lengel, “You didn’t have to embarrass them” (Updike 238). With Mr. Lengel replying to him, “It was they who embarrassing us” (238).

Then Sammy quits by pulling the bow at the back of the apron and start shrugging it off his shoulders.

When Sammy quits his job is also a rebellious moment because he quits to show the girls he stands up for them but when he does there is no one to thank him for his heroic moment. Sammy finally realizes that "the world will be hard to me, hereafter" (Updike 238) for the decision he had made for sticking up for people he really didn’t know. What I learned while reading the story is that with every decision there is consequences.

Speaking up for someone may not always be the wrong or right thing to do. When you want to speak your own mind and defend someone you should be ready for the consequences coming after.