The Story Of A&P

In the story of "A & P", John Updike guides us through the life of young people through imagery, to help us gain the understandment between the conflict of the young and the old.

"A & P" is a tale of a young man who lets his desires and his anger get a little to far ahead of him and in the end winds up making a poor decision based on impulse. Sammy, an nineteen year old boy from a small suburb outside Boston who works at an A & P Supermarket, seems like an average boy who seems a tad bit tired of the regular customers who come into his store. Including those older married women with multiple children, the overweight lady who must we add has no regrets to wearing her bathing suit that doesn't quite cover, and the nit picking old women who spend years trying to catch a small glitch by a cashier, which is usually Sammy himself. It's the last ditch effort to make an impression on a beautiful young lady that ends up leaving Sammy unemployed.

The story starts out in an A & P when in through the door walks three eye catching young ladies sporting nothing but revealing two piece bathing suits. Quickly noticed by Sammy, he changes his focus towards the three girls, forgetting his duties as cashier and critiques them in his head as he watches them shop about the store. It's the leader of the pack, a sure beauty, which Sammy coins the nickname Queenie, that really catches his eye. She stands tall with beautiful brown hair and peircing blue eyes, whose shoulder straps had fallen off of her shoulders and just dangled around her arms. Entregued by her beauty and surprising elegance she quickly walks up to Sammy's line, feeling blessed when Queenie and her pack place their purchase on his line, he begins to ring up her can of fancy herring snacks. As Queenie reaches into the center of her bikini to remove the dollar to pay for the snack, in walks a man by the name of Lengel. Lengel, Sammy's uptight dreary manager quickly notices the outfits of the three girls which sticks out like a million stars on a clean night. Legel begins to walk over and confront Queenie, while Sammy quickly rings up her purchase. Lengel proceeds to harass and embarrass Queenie and her friends about their attire.Of course in this instance one may see both points of view. It is morally incorrect to walk into any store wearing nothing short of 2 feet of material and nothing on your feet. This brings the conflict between the young and the old when in the eyes of Sammy, these beautiful girls are young, and to him its obvious Queenie is just doing her mother a quick favor which was clear to see she herself and her crew were not prepaired for. Sammy was quick to ring up the purchase and hand Queenie a bag with her food in it. But in Sammys young mind, now was the time for him to make his move. Whether it was his hope to catch the attention of such a cute thing or maybe it was his anger toward Lengel for ruining his debute with this gorgeous females. Either way Sammy was mortified and was sure these girls could see the blood rushing to his face from the embarresement and the anger built up towards Lengel. Not surprised at the girls attempt to high tail it out of the store, Sammy quickly hollered out " I quit". Of course the girls had heard him, but they continued to walk across the parking lot to quickly get home. Now it was just Sammy and Lengel. Realizing what he had done, and