Sammys Enlightenment

Tsvetan Todorov

Professor McCrary

January 25, 2016        

Sammy’s Enlightenment

People do things to impress other people. When someone loses someone in their life they should not accept that as a lost, it should be accepted as a lesson. People should know their chances and where they belong when trying to impress other people because not everyone is the same.The Updike’s story A&P show the readers that chasing a woman can be a lifetime lesson and can change a person's  life.

        The main character in John Updike's story talks about the girl Queenie like something precious and shows interest in, getting the attention of Quinee by quitting job, hoping Queenie is going to paying attention and to give a sign that Queenie might like Sammy.  Those actions are provoked from a quick glance by Queenie towards Sammy but most likely the main character misunderstood Queenie. Example for probability Queene liking Sammy in the Updike's story is “She must have felt in the corner of her eye me and over my shoulder Stokesie in the second slot watching, but she didn't tip.(295).” Another action which allowed Sammy to think that Queenie likes him is when Queenie comes to his pay desk which Sammy accepts like it was on purpose. Another example that shows Queenie liking Sammy  and he might have misinterpreted it wrong is when the story says ,  “Still with that prim look she lifts a folded dollar bill out of the hollow at the center of her nubbled pink top(297).” Maybe Sammy thought that she is trying to seduce him with pulling out her money from the top of the bathing suit. With those signs that Sammy understood wrong, thoughts and hoping might pop out about how Sammy can win Queenie’s attention. This shows how people who don’t know their chances and places in others people’s life to winning someone t. Many people think of other people like they are gorgeous and they are the right person but if it is not the same on the other side it may ruin all the expectations. After the manager of the store gives attitude to the girls about their outfit, Sammy makes the heroic gesture by quitting his job and defending the girls spontaneously but they didn’t pay attention to his actions. The girls probably heard Sammy but they were embarrassed and didn’t want to turn back and pay attention to him. After Sammy’s argument with the manager the things were not so bright for Sammy because he won’t have a job and will disappoint not only himself but also the parents. After the main character is fired from the job Sammy went out to look for the girls but obviously there’s no one there.  From that moment on Sammy realised that the life won’t be so good. In the Updike's story Samy says , “ and my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.”(299).  With Sammys’s spontaneous actions Sammy is disapointing his parent. That's again an example how people do things to impress other people who don’t care about what the other person is doing for them.