The Black Sheep

The short story A&P tells the coming of age story of a nineteen year old boy named Sammy. Sammy has obliviously placed himself into a situation that many small town teenagers often fall victim to. Sammy works a dead end job at the local A&P grocery store and he senses that he will be stuck working there while life carelessly passes him by. This realization quickly changes after an accidental encounter with three young female customers changes his course from HiHo crackers and diapers to a welcomed new and unpredictable future. After thorough inspection of the text, Sammy does not quit his job because of the girls, rather, he quits because he knows that a dead end job and this way of life is not what he is meant for.

Sammy is a normal teenage boy in many aspects. He loves girls, he is a dreamer with an extremely vivid imagination, and he is very defiant when it comes to authority. However, Sammy, in many ways, is not the typical small town teenager. Sammy is mature enough to comprehend the reality of his surroundings. The way he talks about the patrons shopping in his store are the thoughts of someone with a firm grip on how the world really works. I am not saying that he is not an ignorant boy, but he does understand that this job and the people he is interacting with is not something he wants to be permanent. Sammy talks about one shopper that is moving through his line as, “She’s one of these cash-register-watchers...she’d been watching cash registers for fifty years and probably never seen a mistake before”(211). Those are not the words of someone that is content with their job and their position, having to constantly deal with annoying customers like her. He dislikes the customers so much that he refers to them as sheep, all following the same route and destination. And what do sheep exactly do? They follow their herder, all one by one.

Following the herd, or crowd in this case, is not what Sammy is about. He wants to stand out of his town’s norm and actually make something of himself.

While the three girls are making their way though the store, a less analyzed character is introduced in the story. Stokesie is a young man that works in the check-out stand next to Sammy. Even though he is often over looked, Stokesie plays an important character in the story. Stokesie actually acts as model for Sammy as what not to be in the next few years. Stokesie represents the majority of young adults of this small town. Sammy even says that “Stokesie’s married, with two babies chalked up on his fuselage already, but as far as I can tell that’s the only difference...he thinks he’s going to be manager some sunny day... (213). Sammy uses Stokesie’s life as a barometer to how his own life could end up. He sees Stokesie