A&P Individualism Essay Example

and the girls are the individualists. Sammy then becomes liberated from the government when he quits his job and sees that even though he now sees in himself an individual life is going to be harder on him now that it will be harder for him to conform to life and society.

The girls and Sammy also exemplifies individualism by rebellion of authority; Sammy quits his job “”Did you say something Sammy? ” ”I said I quit. ””, and the girls go into the A&P store in bathing suits “We want you decently dressed when you come in here” (Updike 7). The girls’ individualism inspires Sammy to finally get out of the machine of the A&P store and just of society in general. Sammy becomes angry and frustrated and begins to realize he is unable to conform to society’s norms with contributes to his individuality and his stubbornness to Lengel as Lengel tries to stop Sammy to no avail from quitting his job.

Sammy is very prevalent and persistent in his choices that he made and nothing that Lengel says hinders Sammy. It is like Newton’s third law of motion which is if one force acts on an object and equal and opposite force will act on it. So the more Lengel tries to calm Sammy the surer and stubborn he gets of himself. For the most part of “A&P” Sammy is a weak, disaffected, and opinionated character. He’s been living his life in A&P doing nothing for himself and sees everyone under him. He doesn’t make any choices and criticizes others in his mind.

Only after the individualistic girls enter A&P

and Lengel confronts them Sammy gets enough strength in his ways to stop conforming to how the store works and how the sheep act and ultimately doesn’t want to become like Lengel or Stokesie. Even after realizing that Sammy himself lost everything he knew life is only going to get harder, because now he doesn’t want to get stuck in the system of society like A&P. Sammy’s behavior may seem abstruse, but that’s explains his individuality and the story provides a strong sense of individuality through Sammy and against authority.

Sammy’s individualistic characteristics are only displayed when he was forced to when Lengel embarrassed the girls that Sammy almost looked up to. “”Girls, I don’t want to argue with you. After this come in here with your shoulders covered. It’s our policy. ””, and Sammy thinks to himself, “That’s policy for you. Policy is what the kingpins want. What others want is juvenile delinquency” (Updike 7). This partly foreshadows that Sammy is going to speak up for himself and have some self-expression as it seems in the story that Sammy doesn’t speak his mind any.

He just does his job and doesn’t have quarrels with anyone. Sammy’s rebellion and individualistic ideals ultimately leads to his downfall and his stubbornness towards conformity proves his individuality. A main over-arching theme of “A&P” by John Updike could most definitely be individualism. Both the girls and Sammy are main protagonists in the story that give a sense of individuality. They both have a rebellious aura about them and Sammy’s is shown through the confrontation with Lengel.

Sammy can’t conform to society and just lazily glides along

how society does things until three girls finally inspire him to stop being like a machine and express yourself like how the three girls walk in the A&P store in just their bathing suits. Even in the end Sammy is almost relieved of getting out of A&P with Lengel’s “face dark gray and his back stiff, as if he’d just had an injection of iron, and [Sammy’s] stomach kind of fell as [he] felt how hard the world was going to be” (Updike 8). He sees Lengel as another pawn of society and sees himself free of that, but because of that freedom life is going to be harder for him.