Sammy the Social Climber in John Updikes A&P :: A&P Essays

Sammy the Social Climber in A & P    Men will go to extreme measures to strickle women. This is the case in the story A & P scripted by John Updike. Sammy, who is a cashier at a supermarket, displays a classic example of a man separate outing to impress a woman. His rash conclusiveness to quit his job was a bad decision and will definitely have an adverse effect on him in the future. Sammy seems doomed from the very first sentence when he says, In walks tercet girls in nothing but bathing becomes (Updike 1026). He notices every curt detail ab show up the girls from the color of their bathing suits to their tan lines. At this beat he is checking out one of these cash- immortalize-watchers, and he is yelled at for tintinnabulation up her item twice (Updike 1026). This distraction from his job shows his interest in the girls, especially the one he calls Queenie. To Sammys delight, Queenie and her two friends filling his register to purchase the Fancy Herrin g Snacks in Pure Sour flutter (Updike 1027). When she puts the snacks down on the counter, Sammy notices that her hands are free. While he is wonder where the money is going to come from, she proceeds to pull the dollar bills out of the hollow at the center of her nubbled pink top (Updike 1027). This gesture puts Sammy in total awe of the girl, and this is the turning point, this is when he makes his decision that he should try to impress her. His big chance comes when the store manager, Lengel, makes a visit to Sammys line. Girls, this isnt the beach, is the first thing Lengel says to the girls when he sees them (Updike 1028). Queenie explains that her mother sent her to pick up some herring snacks, implying that since her mother sent her it is perfectly fair for her to be in the store with only a bathing suit on. While Lengel and Queenie are arguing, Sammy visualizes himself at Queenies house during a party. In his imagination he sees, her father and the other men were standing well-nigh in ice-cream coats and bow ties and the women were in sandals picking up herring snacks on toothpicks off a big glass plate and they were all retention drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them (Updike 1028).