A and P

John Updike's "A&P" is a multi-layered story about a young man's first foray into the working world as a cashier at the local A & P. Underneath that main text is a subtext that explores this young man's first realization of a 1950's American class system, and his place within that system.

The young man named Sammy is caught between childhood and adulthood, fantasy and the real world. Updike allows him to fluctuate between detailed accurate description of the real events that occur, and an imagined world that mixes fantasy up with his ideas of manhood and the real world of middle class suburbia.

Updike uses a first-person narrative from Sammy's perspective to follow his beginning awareness of class, and three young girls to highlight his struggle with his place in that pecking order.

As those three young girls enter his world, he lets his mind drift towards them. Sammy imagines things about the lives of these three young girls without really knowing anything at all about them. He gets caught up in his own narrative and his thoughts about them follow their real journey through the store.

As his thoughts follow the girls, we get a view of a New England 1950’s idea of class. At this time a majority of people who thought about class issues at all would have been aware of the idea of three different classes of Americans: lower, middle, and upper class. Each of these girls could be called representative symbols of these classes. These symbols probably would have been recognized by a majority of people in the 1950's and 1960's.

The first girl Sammy sees is one he feels comfortable with. This first description is long and detailed, making you wonder if this girl represents the class that Sammy is closest to, the class he unconsciously recognizes most clearly. She's wearing a "plaid green 2-piece" (417) bathing suit that will be described again just a little further on in the story where Updike allows him to give descriptions of all three girls together. She is "chunky" (417) and has "a good tan" (417). He likes her "sweet broad soft-looking can" (417).

Sammy's sexist descriptions of not only this girl but the other two as well, portray the girls as things, items of possible ownership for the men in the story. But Sammy sees the other men in the story treating the women as if they were meat /flesh for their perusal. Sammy thinks he's above that. He doesn't treat women that way.

If Sammy is playing out a number of different fantasies inside his head, we might say that perhaps Sammy sees himself as Prince Charming just waiting for his Cinderella. In this scenario, this first girl might be playing out the role of one of the wicked step-sisters. Perhaps it is the older one, because Sammy likes this girl the least.

At the end of the story this girl representing the lower class, "the plump one" (420) is the one that he "liked best from behind" (420). Perhaps Sammy would like to see this class only from a position of looking back. He does not want to be a part of it. His struggle still hasn't allowed him to admit that this may be where he is right now.

The second girl is "tall" (417) "with black hair" (417) and a "chin that was too long" (417). She is not "tan[ned]" (417), she is "sunburn[ed)" (417).. Sammy thinks that other girls see her as "striking" (417) and "attractive" (417), but not "quite mak[ing] it," (417) "which is why they like her so much" (417).

If this girl also represents a wicked step-sister, she's not quite as wicked as the first girl, but her middle class position is not what Sammy is hoping for. It's the world he thinks he wants to escape from.

We could say that Sammy aspires to much more than this. Those of the middle class would want to be more than this too. Sammy is not alone in this feeling. American attitudes sometimes feel that upper class way of life is the life to aim for. No one wants to be considered lower class, and it's just not good enough to be middle class. You must aspire to make yourself and your life better.

Middle-class Americans believed that anything was possible if you worked hard enough for it. Perhaps they were as deluded in their ideas as Sammy seems to be. In the end this may turn out to be one huge myth to keep people locked into traditional jobs that make money for others, rather than themselves.

At the end of the story he sees that the second girl might not be as bad as he thought at first. She is not too bad in the way of "raw material" (420). He sees a potential for something better in her; something possible beyond the passive acceptance and routine of a suburban world. He might believe that the potential to be more than what he started with is available to him in ways that it would never be available for those of the lower class, and maybe he sees that in this girl too.

Girl three, Sammy's Cinderella is a representative of the upper class. She is not quite as tall as girl two but taller than girl one. She is "their Queen" (417), their leader the one who shows them how to do things. She showed them how to "walk slow, hold yourself straight" (418) as they move through the store.

Those of the middle class would pay very close attention to those lessons. So would the person of a lower class background, even if they didn't quite believe the life of Queenie, the life of an upper class person would be a life that they could live.

She is wearing a "dirty pink-beige" (418) suit. The straps are down and "the clean bare plane of the top of her chest down from her shoulder bones... was more than pretty" (418). He's negative in his description of her suit, but he acknowledges that physically she is prettier than the others. In that, she is well above the others. This idea suits her class, at least as Sammy sees it.

He is also somewhat derogatory about the girl and the world or lifestyle she represents to him. He fantasizes about the world she a life in that seems to be above him, imagining what life is like at her house. It fascinates him and attracts him, and at the same time, repels him. Still, his gaze, his focus follows her movements around the store. Perhaps he, like the other girls, is learning from her because he wants to be like her too.

While Sammy himself has viewed these girls by their appearances, he takes exception when the manager Lengel does much the same thing. The difference is that while Sammy has kept everything inside his mind, Lengel engages the girls in a conversation about their appearance and embarrasses them.

Hoping that the girls will notice him, Sammy plays out his version of a hero fantasy. He has gone from a prince to a knight in shining armor that will save them from the dragon or the bad king. They will be so grateful that that he and his Cinderella, who he conveniently has nick-named Queenie will walk off into the sunset and live happily ever after.

The reality is that Queenie and the other girls don't even notice his heroic gesture. They have simply purchased their goods and walked on without looking back. This could be considered a highly unintentional feminist point of view in the story, since these girls have no need for Sammy’s actions, and they aren't relying on his help for anything. The reality is that all three of the girls barely notice him. He is simply the cashier who takes their money before they leave the store.

By quitting his job, he is forced to think about the consequences of his actions. He is jolted out of his fantasy world and into a reality he may not be prepared for. At the beginning of the story he may have seen himself as middle class, but at the end he has a beginning realization that maybe he hasn't quite gotten things in the real world sorted out.

He may be closer to the lower class and that first girl than he really wants to be. Perhaps he's never even considered that he might be on the lower rung of that middle class suburbia he lives in...His naive views of the world make him think that by quitting, he will be out of that existence. He doesn't know yet how deeply ingrained those middle class values are inside him, or how hard it will be to try to leave all that exists in that middle class world behind him.