Instead, he wants to be with the girls, eating herring snacks with their parents at the fantasy party he envisions, where men in ice-cream white coats serve olives and real cocktails poolside.
It is easy to sympathize with Sammy, given that the repressive nature of society he perceives around him seems very real. The entire store is transfixed by the sight of the girls: "She kept her eyes moving across the racks, and stopped, and turned so slow it made my stomach rub the inside of my apron, and buzzed to the other two, who kind of huddled against her for relief, and they all three of them went up the cat-and-dog-food-breakfast-cereal-macaroni-rice-raisins-seasonings-spreads-spaghetti-soft drinks- crackers-and- cookies aisle" (Updike 468). It is absurd how much the other patrons care about what the girls are wearing, but also absurd how much moral weight Sammy gives to these ordinary girls' ambling march through the aisles.
Because of his own perspective as a frustrated grocery store clerk, Sammy sees the girls as liberating the town, shocking the 'bums' who buy inexplicable amounts of pineapple juice (in another one of his funny asides). Sammy is filled with...
But he also projects higher, chivalric moral aspirations upon the girls: he wants to defend them, even if he cannot 'have' them.
Sammy's perspective is not complete -- his envisioning of the paradise of the girl's life is clearly a fantasy. Sometimes Updike the author lets reality slip through, even while he is using Sammy's limited perspective. For example, Sammy is surprised that the 'Queen' has a flat, bored voice, not like the sweet, sophisticated tones he clearly imagined. Sammy notes that his parents found it sad that he quit because he wanted to make a stand for the right of rich girls to wear bathing suits in the a&P. But the author's ability to ironically show Sammy's
adolescent viewpoint -- the strength of that viewpoint, and also its limitations -- is what makes Updike's "A&P" a work of literary artistry. (756 words)
Work Cited
Updike, John. "A&P." From the Compact Bedford Introduction to
Literature.
Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 2008.
