A&P

A reader’s log – By Leong Qing Yi

“A & P”* by John Updike is a story about sexuality, freedom of expression, and the generation gap
(conservative VS modern thinking). The main character in the story is Sammy, a 19 year old teenager who is on
the brink of adulthood and at the surrender of his hormones, displaying his fascination with the other sex.

The story starts with three girls who are dressed in swimsuits and no shoes on that promptly walk into the “A
&P” one afternoon; a dreary, suburban grocery store in the north of Boston, America where Sammy works as a
cashier. They quickly catch the eye of Sammy and the centre of attention of everyone not only for their risqué
clothing but also the inappropriateness of their dress in an environment which Sammy regards as slow, boring
and predictable. This is shown when Sammy describes the customers as “sheep pushing their carts down the
aisle” that would “keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists and muttering ‘Let me see, there was a
third thing, began with A, asparagus, no, ah, yes, applesauce!’” even if you tried to set dynamite off inside the
store.

The reactions of Sammy’s co-workers, some not much older than Sammy yet considered as adults in society
( for example Stokesie, a married twenty-two year old “with two babies chalked up on his fuselage already”) all
show the same reactions as Sammy at the raw display of sex and frivolity of the three girls in tight swimsuits.
Stokesie, ever the responsible married man, reacts by saying "I feel so faint" and "Is it done?" Old McMahon is
reduced to “patting his mouth and looking after them sizing up their joints”. Even Sammy, who has been
watching the three girls and narrating with an acute sense of description is apparently truly smitten as the
prettiest girl of the lot, “Queenie”, pays for her purchase with a cool display of daring as she “lifts a folded
dollar bill out of the hollow at the center of her nubbled pink top.”

However this open display of sexuality is quickly challenged by Sammy’s boss Mr. Lengel, the manager of the
A&P and also a close friend of his parents. His conservative thinking and his role as a Sunday school teacher
drives him to instill a piece of civility at the obvious show of skin by the girls, remarking that " this isn't the
beach" and “After this come in here with your shoulders covered. It's our policy.” This, of course, causes great
embarrassment for the girls and becomes a catalyst for Sammy’s rebellion, who although is initially startled by
Queenie’s “flat and dumb yet kind of tony” voice, but quickly regains his dissatisfaction by rebuking this
contradiction of the younger generations’ freedom of expression; “Policy is what the kingpins want. What the
others want is juvenile delinquency.”

The final brazen act comes when Sammy deliberately quits his job while the girls are hurrying out of the store,
yet he is struck immediately “by how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter” and the fact that this
sudden rush he got from quitting on impulse does not mean he will not have to face the many Lengels in his
not-so-distant future.

* The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company