A&P

The short story A&P by John Updike is a socio culture, symbolism first-person narrative. This story is told through the eyes of a cashier, Sammy. He works at the grocery store A&P, and he notices three girls enter the store one day, all dressed in nothing but their bathing suits. He goes into a heavy description of the girls; describing their bathing suits and individual characteristics of the girls, especially the “chunky one in the plaid green two piece,” Sammy says he really likes her can, or as we know it: he is saying she has a nice butt. The girls go about the store traveling aisle to aisle looking for what it is they came to buy. Sammy and his co-worker Stoksie follow the girls with their eyes all over the store. Actions of customers around the store are also taken to note by Sammy and he sees how these girls, and how they walk and carry themselves, are affecting the other customers and their actions. He sees all the other customers as nothing but sheep being herded by carts out the door but he does not see the girls in their bathing suits this way. Eventually the girls make their way to the front and happen to come to Sammy’s register to pay for the one thing they came for what was some herring in cream sauce in a can. When the girls are in his line, Sammy's manager then takes notice of the girls and how they are not dressed properly to be shopping in the store. The way Lengel, Sammy's manager, handles the situation Sammy does not appreciate and finds his manager to be somewhat humiliating and embarrassing the girls. Sammy wanting to be noticed by the girls takes on this badass persona and speaks out to his manager hoping the girls would hear, telling his manager he quits. It is a massive failure on Sammy’s part and he is not noticed. The girls continue out the door and Sammy loses his job by quitting. Sammy is now stuck with no girls and no job and from this point on realizes his life just got a lot harder.

The theme that John Updike takes on in this short piece is socio-culture and symbolism of society. Sammy describing the girls in heavy detail is one part of the symbolism, “The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece. 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,” The symbolism of this quote is very descriptive and borders the sexuality aspect of what these girls represent walking into the store in nothing but their bathing suits. The fact that the two men in front of the store glue their eyes to these females walking in because they are dressed somewhat provocatively and have promiscuous body language with how they walk around the store, “She didn't look around, not this queen, she just walked straight on slowly, on these long white prima donna legs,” describes girls in general and especially this story are a perfect way to symbolize being sexy or attractive. The socio-culture part of the theme is described through the customers and cashier watcher. A cashier watcher is someone who makes sure you do your job right and is supposed to correct you if you mess up. Sammy in this case messed up but didn't like being corrected so he sees her as a witch in the society, someone he doesn't want to respect or care what they say and is just plain annoying and should not exist. He says, “if she'd been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem,” this quote truly expresses how Sammy sees this lady in the society of where he works. Sammy's description of the customers as nothing but, “The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle -- the girls were walking against the usual traffic,” Sammy has developed this sense of culture in the store he works that all the customer basically just come here as a routine and mean nothing to him but not these girls. The girls are seen for what they are and more because they are attractive and he wants their attention, is why he tries so hard to impress them in the end.