#16 Week 10 John Updike "A&P" pg.311-315

Summary

 Sammy a nineteen year old boy working at an A&P store one day, notices three girls walk in dressed completely different form everyone else in the store. The girls were all in two piece bathing suits and were barefoot. Sammy observes each girl and gives each of them a nickname “the fat one”, “the tall one” and the “queenie”. Sammy notes that the girls each have different feature and strange quarks. When the girls finally find the item that they were searching for, they go to Sammy’s cash register to get checked out, at the very same time Sammy’s manager walks in and starts to harass the girls. He tells them there is a dress code and they are not at the beach, the girls faces turn red with embarrassment as they finish paying and hurry out of the store: Sammy turns to his manager, Lengel, and says he quits. Lengel who is a friend of Sammy’s parents warns him that his parents won’t be pleased. Sammy takes off him apron and tie and leaves them folded nicely on the register. As Sammy leaves Lengel tells him that he will “feel this for the rest of your life”, Sammy agrees and exists the store. Feeling uneasy about the future ahead of him, Sammy knows he has experienced what the world can be like but knows that he can be the change in it.

Reader Response      

This was a cute story! Cute to me anyway, because Sammy stood up for what he believed in and for the girls and quit because his jerk of a boss was so rude for no good reason. I liked the moral of this story, which is to stick to your morals and always stand up for what you believe in. Although it kind of stinks because of the stories we have read before  that  have mentioned this story and the way it ends so really the whole story was spoiled for me. I think Lengel is just one of those ugly people who just like to make others feel bad about themselves so he can feel good about himself, which I think is pathetic. I felt however that Sammy, at the end of the story, felt like he had seen and witnessed how harsh the world was going to be but at the same time he knew that he did not have to be the same, he could be the good and different individual. Overall I liked the story, and I liked how it was written in a not so serious, joking way, it was funny.