Katherine Sheedy
Writing about Literature
Professor Dasgupta
January 17, 2013

Set in a grocery store called A&P near the beach in 1961, the nineteen year old

narrator Sammy is a grocery store clerk, just going along with the motions of his job

and his life when all of a sudden three girls walk into the store, clad in only bikinis. This

brings some excitement and entertainment to his normally boring job, as he observes

the girls appearances very closely. The entire atmosphere of the grocery store changes,

everyone notices the girls and all male attention is on them. Eventually the girls make

their way to Sammy’s check-out lane, and his manager notices them and comes over to

say something regarding their lack of clothing. The girls become extremely embarrassed

and the head one Sammy nicknamed “Queenie”, the most attractive of the three, tries to

defend herself. Sammy makes a rash choice in wanting to impress the girls, and in a

heroic gesture, quits, stomping out of the store only to find that the girls are gone, and did

not even notice him or what he has done. Sammy’s reaction to the girls being told to be

more modest is an example of his desire to break free of his monotone life and set

himself apart from the rest of A&P in order to impress the girls, particularly Queenie,

and reflects the changing atmosphere of the 1960s, in which rebellion and freedom of

expression in society particularly in the younger generation were growing in popularity.

Sammy is nineteen years old, and is working as a grocery store clerk. He is

clearly bored with his life, and feels that he is somehow smarter and superior to

everyone else at A&P. This is evident as he refers to the customers as “sheep”, and makes fun of

them,

“the sheep pushing their carts down the aisle were pretty hilarious” (Updike 142). This

reflects his sense that he is better than these customers, and at the same time shows some

insight into the time period that the story was taking place. “Sheep”, meaning everyone is

the same, no one thinks differently, no one has a different opinion, everyone just follows

the social norm and sticks to the status quo and what is acceptable in society. The “sheep”

were all moving one way, and the girls were “walking against the usual traffic, not that

we have one way signs or anything” (Updike 142). This shows that the girls were making

a statement, just by walking against the normal flow of traffic in the store. This connects

to the evolving time period in which the story took place, the youth going against

established status quo, and the author demonstrates that by the simple act of the girls

walking against everyone else. The girls could not care less that everyone else was facing

a different way then them, and this attracted attention from older customers. “A few

house slaves in pin curlers even looked around after pushing their carts to make sure what they

were seeing was correct” (Updike 142). The fact that Sammy refers to the women as

“houseslaves” also references the time period, that these women were just home-makers

and nothing more, going along with their everyday lives and not questioning anything, since

the 1950s had just ended and that was still the norm in society, though times were obviously

changing and evolving with younger generations. The bathing suits in the store reflect a gradual

change that is going to be evident throughout the rest of the sixties. The sixties were an age of

change and a breaking free of the more constraining time period of the fifties. The girls wearing

the bathing suits into the store and not thinking anything of it is an example of the changing time

period, this is shown in the story, “She didn’t look around, not this queen, she walked straight

on slowly on these long white prima-donna legs” (Updike 141). The girls had no regard