John Updike A&p

In the story A&P, John Updike shows how the main character, a teenage clerk named Sammy, allows his emotions to get the best of him. After seeing a group of teenage girls become embarrassed by his boss, Mr. Lengel, Sammy ceremoniously embarks on a self-righteous bout to show how Mr. Lengel’s mistreatment and attack of the innocent girls’ dignity was unjust. However, he realized his attempt was futile when he notices that the girls left before they could witness his gesture. In the end, Sammy’s pride, self-righteousness, and his desire to defend another individual’s dignity, only led to his termination of employment at the grocery store. John Updike uses Sammy’s character and the setting to convey the theme, which is that pride will sometimes leave you in a situation worse off than you were before.

The first element used is Sammy’s character. Sammy’s character is ideal for the story because of his young age. Individuals who are young in age typically have a stereotype, for the most apart, to allow their emotions run rampant, according to professionals in the psychology field. The American Psychological Association stated in a recent study, “Physiology may aid to younger people’s increased emotions. Dr. Mather and additional colleagues have done preliminary brain research suggesting that in older adults, the “amygdala,” an almond-shaped part of the temporal lobe that's associated with emotion, is activated equally to positive and negative images, whereas in younger adults, it is activated more to negative images. This suggests that adults encode less information about negative images, which in turn would diminish recall.” (APA 1). With keeping this information in mind, the reader can sense a strong sense of emotion within Sammy by the end of the story. The reader can see Sammy’s self-righteousness become apparent when he says to Mr. Lengel, “You didn’t have to embarrass them” (307) and also when his infatuation becomes evident when he states, “She must have felt me in the corner of her eye.” (303). He possesses everything from infatuation to virtuousness. Consequently, these characteristics are what led Sammy into losing his job at the grocery store.

The second element that Updike uses in the story is the setting. The grocery store is an ideal setting because it represents a barrier or obstruction that keeps Sammy from his new found infatuation. He attempts to bridge this barrier by standing