Comparison Of Sammies And John Updike's A & P

Both characters within the two stories exhibit different characters that overall lead them back to the same theme. Sammies exhibits normal characteristic of teens during the early 60’s. With social division among the working, and upper class many teens within the work class found themselves dreaming of other alternatives. Sammie is given the chance to decide between continuing his work at A&P, or possibly receiving attention from Queenie and her friends. Reacting to the girls Sammie states, “but remembering how he made that pretty girl blush makes me so scrunchy inside I punch the No Sale tab and the machine whiers “pee-pul” and the drawer splat out.” (A&P 3) After making the choice to stand up for the girls he leave the A&P store without a
The infamous, and somewhat scandalous clothing the young girls were wearing into Lengel’s A&P grocery store stood for more than just articles of clothing. These girls chose to wear these bathing suits to represent the power they believed they maintain due to their social ranking. Likewise the bathing suits represented their identity of rebelling against social norms and standards. Queenie and her friends used the bathing suits to attract more attention to themselves, showing off not only their features but the power that their features and choice of clothing had. In some ways you could say that looking attractive was a form of power. As Sammie explain, “it’s one thing to have a girl in a bathing suit down on the beach, where what with the glare nobody can look at each other much anyway, and another thing in the cool of the A&P, under the fluorescent lights, against all those stacked packages, with her feet paddling along naked over our checkerboard green-and-cream rubber-tile floor.” (A&P 1) These girls used their looks to lure men in, and persuade certain situations. Not only were the bathing suits and bodily features a form of power, but they represented where they stood on the social ladder. The girls came to the A&P store for one reason which was to pick up Herring Snack for Queenie’s mother. Herring snack as Sammie describes were for the fancy folks in town. Sammie begging to dream of a life of leisure based on the simple Herring Snacks Queenie brings to him at the cash register. Sammie states, “All of a sudden I slid right down her voice into her living room. Her father and the other men were standing around in ice cream coats and bow ties and the women were in sandals picking herring snacks on toothpicks off a big plate and they were all holding drinking the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them.” (A&P 2) The herring snack represent