Brett Suda
Mr. McKernan
English III
11 September 2012
Life into the Real World
A & P is comic because Sammy’s admiration of the purity and sexual innocence of the young girls in his store also allows him to grow up and separate himself from the sheep like people of society and become a non-conformist. Sammy is simply a boy with an appreciation of beauty that is erotic but also artistic and intellectual. He will not end up like his checker friend Stokesie "married with two babies chalked up on his fuselage already" at the age of 21, but will instead lead him to end up lonely and with nowhere to go but the natural world. (2). Sammy describes the girls, “With the straps pushed off, there was nothing between the top of the suit and the top of her head except just her, this clean bare plane of the top of her chest down from the shoulder bones like a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light. I mean, it was more than pretty.” (1). Sammy’s admiration of the young girl’s sexual innocence acts as a distraction which keeps him from doing his job. Sammy’s admiration will bring him to quit his job in order to show off to the girls who are not there to witness him. Sammy’s separation from the sheep-like people of society allows him to move from the manufactured world to the natural world. Sammy living in a world in which is centered on rules, decides to rebel against them after he sees the young girl’s walk into the store as Sammy said “In walk these three girls in nothing but bathing suits.” (1). The young girl’s distract him from his job, causing him to