Reaction and Thoughts on A&P

John Updike’s, “A & P” is a short story about coming of age and a young man’s journey to maturity. People don’t reach adulthood overnight. The process of maturity is something that happens over a long period of years. Reaching adulthood also requires many lessons and some of them can be difficult. “A & P” is a story about Sammy and one of these difficult lessons on his passage to maturity.

In the story, Sammy rebels against the particular store policy of not wearing a bikini in the business. If the story were narrowed down to one primary theme it could easily be that the impulses of youth, especially with males, often cause irrational decisions resulting in lasting ramifications. Often times these decisions have lasting and painful repercussions. In “A & P” Sammy’s quits his job based on his perception of how his manager handled the situation. Sammy feels caught between two notions. One, that the manager was entirely too harsh and could have been much more gentle about the delivery of policy. And two, he likes the girls, especially Queenie, and hopes to impress them by standing up to what he believes the girls value: their self-image. In the story, Sammy quits at the precise moment he hopes will impress the girls by standing up to authority and rebelling. Unfortunately, his rebellion goes particularly unnoticed. Sammy didn’t consider that the manager can easily find a suitable replacement. And the girls, they could have cared less, as far as he is considered. There is another deeper motif in the story with a theme involving social status and the privileges having money and access present. The girls deemed a higher social class than Sammy can afford to be rebellious; there are no ramifications other than perhaps some mild embarrassment. For Sammy, the results are much more severe. At the cost of his job and the pain of a harsh lesson on girls, he ends up outside looking at what could have been.

Speaking in general, there are a few themes presented in this story. The first theme is the coming of age and maturation process we all will face in our lives. And two, the class system in America. The girls' rebellion has roots founded on economic privilege, not something available to Sammy. His lesson is harsh, however, in the end, he will hopefully learn and grow and move on as a better-prepared individual.

Reference

Updike, John. “A&P”. Literature: Reading Action, Poetry, and Drama. 6th ed. Ed. DiYanni. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. pp. 32-36.