A_&_P

A & P “A & P” Life’s hardest lessons are sometimes learned too little, too late. In the short story “A & P”, by John Updike, the main character, Sammy, is a nineteen year-old checker at a local grocery store in a small town just north of Boston. In a matter of a day, he goes from an immature boy with unrealistic ideas and fantasies, to a man who is about to realize how life altering the choices he makes can be. Updike does an excellent job in the portrayal of his main character, Sammy, as a typical teen-age boy working to help out his family. He leads his readers to believe that the only people who enter the store are old women or women with six children. Sammy refers to these women as sheep. His disdain comes through when the three young females, clad only in bathing suits, come into the store, throwing his attention off, while he is cashing out a woman of about fifty. His thoughts about the woman being burned in Salem, had she been born in an earlier time, reveals the resentment he feels towards his job. sammy, life, about, queenie, women, updike, store, readers, come, boy, woman, unrealistic, three, story, sometimes, snacks, out, man, makes, main, little, lessons, late, job, jar, immature, ideas, herring, hero, girls, females, feels, fantasies, face, day