John Updike’s a & P

John Updike’s a & P

John Updike’s A & P was an enjoyable, easy story for me to read. It made me feel as though I was right there in the grocery store watching it place. It also took me back to my younger years, making me feel as though, for a short moment, I was a teenager again like Sammy. A teenager that didn’t have a care in the world, a world that only existed because I was in it.

I had a few different interpretations of Sammy. The language and dialogue that the author used lead me to believe that Sammy was immature, funny, outspoken, and in some ways sensitive. From the first few paragraphs, I thought of Sammy as a typical nineteen year old typical boy. He was at work, but not working. He did more daydreaming and sightseeing than he did work. He impulsively quit his job because of how his manager treated the young women that where in the store. This to me was also a sign of immaturity because he quit his job solely for reasons that didn’t have anything to do with him. He didn’t take the time to think about how he was going to support himself. He didn’t seem as though he had any positive plans for himself other than going to the beach with the