John Updike’s A&P is a short story that tells the tale of an eighteen-year-old girl who quits her job in protest. The story follows three days in her life, all beginning with her working at A&P (a grocery store) and ending with her quitting after confronting a group of girls she thinks are too “brave” to wear bathing suits. Throughout A&P, Updike uses setting in an effective way that contrasts the protagonist’s culture with that of the girls she meets at the beach, develops her character by showing how her surroundings affect her decisions.
Before reading A&P, it is important for readers to keep in mind that A&P is set in a specific moment in time. When A&P begins, Sammy is working at A&P during what is probably summer break from her senior year of high school. The three days following A&P are not shown in chronological order, but before the time flash-forward they are all after A&P. This change helps demonstrate the tension between Sammy’s current life and her memories of A&P. A&P occurs in the moment before Sammy’s life changes, when A&P is just a job she has to do before enjoying her summer off.
When A&P begins, Sammy is working at A&P during what is probably summer break from her senior year of high school. At A & P, Sammy works with two other girls named Rose and Helen. Updike writes that “Sammy liked them both” (3). When A&P starts, they are discussing if their mutual friend Genevieve will show up for work. The story then unfolds as the three girls wait on customers while trying to figure out if Genevieve will actually come in. A&P is short and to the point, and through it Updike does not waste space by describing every detail of A&P or Sammy’s life.
Most details about A&P are defining for Sammy, including “that they sold candy at a counter where nobody bought much, that A & P paid cash” (1). The lack of description allows readers to fill in the gaps with their own mental images. Updike spends more time developing Sammy as a character than A & P itself. By using dialogue and similes instead of descriptions, Updike lets readers feel like they know A & P well enough without ever having been there before: “A truck went by outside with a deep sound… A heavy A & P truck, probably full of potatoes and milk and A & P brand soft drinks” (1).
Updike’s short phrases make A&P seem like a real place that readers know they could visit if they wanted to. A&P is nothing more than a store where Sammy works; it doesn’t really matter what the A&P looks like as long as it feels familiar to readers. When Sammy first sees the girls walking into A&P, she describes them as “laughing, with their heads close together” (3). It isn’t until after they have walked into A&P that Sammy thinks “they were not old ladies, though you might have guessed it from the way they dressed” (3). A&P is a grocery store, and as such it is filled with all sorts of people.
Some customers are wealthier than others, but A&P has its fair share of “old ladies” who have come in to buy groceries. Sammy, however, treats these girls differently from the older ladies at A&P because they seem more confident. Sammy’s reason for quitting A & P may be due to how she thinks about herself compared to the girls she sees at A & P. After waiting on them, Sammy compares her body type with that of the girls: “The leader was a tall streak of a thing with an orange bathing suit” (4-5). It seems like Sammy is comparing herself to A&P customers in general, but the girls in bikinis become a surprising exception.
A&P is filled with different body types, and it is clear that Sammy’s slight physique looks very different from many of A&P’s female customers. When A & P begins, Sammy describes A & P as being “a square box of a store” (1). The squareness of A & P represents how enclosed people are within their own lives. A & P presents no real danger for Sammy, unlike the beach where she meets the girls in bikinis. A & P has rules that must be followed or risk being fired; it does not provide much excitement outside of meeting new customers every day.
A & P is a simple, ordinary place that does not require much risk or change. It is an enclosed space where people go to buy groceries, and it is only when the girls in bikinis walk into A&P that Sammy starts thinking about an exit strategy. A & P allows readers to peer through one of the store’s windows without feeling like they are invading Sammy’s privacy; A & P feels like an out-of-body experience for all three characters. Sammy describes A & P as “a clean bright place full of hard colored candy boxes and wrapped soap bars… lus the redolent cheese counter with its sharp ammonia smell” (1).
A&P has different smells than the beach does, and A&P makes Sammy feel a sense of ownership. Although A & P is a part of a bigger world, A & P feels smaller because it is so familiar to Sammy. The A&P candy shelves are “bright” in the way that they catch one’s eye from far away; A&P might be boring, but its colors provide cheerfulness for customers who walk inside. A&P feels like a place where people can lose themselves because it doesn’t allow much room for change.
At the end of A & P, after she has quit her job at A & P, Sammy says “I don’t know why I did it… I guess I wanted all of a sudden to be a girl who worked in A & P” (14). A & P is so much more than just a place where Sammy works. A&P opens people’s minds to new experiences by making them see the world differently. A&P gives readers insight into other characters’ lives, but it also provides perspective on what Sammy wants out of her own life. A&P allows readers to walk around inside of the store while reading “A&P” because A&P feels familiar to them even if they have never been there before themselves.
