ShmoopTube

00:00

A&P, a la Shmoop. The sight of a pretty girl has been known

00:14

to cause traffic accidents…

00:16

…maybe the occasional hot-coffee-down-the-front-of-the-shirt…

00:23

…but it doesn’t usually result in someone abandoning their job.

00:31

Even Clinton stuck it out. But in John Updike’s short story A&P…

00:36

…that is precisely what happens.

00:43

His protagonist, Sammy, is one smitten kitten.

00:46

One second, he’s ringing up customers in his grocery store, going about business as

00:52

usual…

00:52

…and the next second, he’s hanging up his apron for good.

01:00

His decision was certainly prompted by the arrival of the three scantily-clad bikini

01:05

babes…

01:08

…but what was the REAL reason for Sammy to vamoose?

01:14

Did he think he might have a shot with “Queenie” or one of her friends…

01:17

…but only if he didn’t work at the A&P?

01:20

He looks for them in the parking lot after exiting the store, which seems to support

01:25

the idea that he was looking to… hook it up.

01:27

Of course, quitting his job made him unemployed, which is not something that generally works

01:33

with the ladies, so… maybe he should have thought that one through a little better.

01:42

But it could be that he was simply ashamed of what he was doing with his life…

01:46

…and wanted to show the objects of his affection that he was a changed man.

01:53

But maybe Sammy was a tad more realistic than that. Is it possible Sammy quit simply because

01:59

he was enraged at how Lengel, the manager, treated them?

02:02

He could just be a man of principle… someone who isn’t going to stand idly by while a

02:09

few innocent…ish girls get reamed by some crotchety grump.

02:14

Was this just his way of taking a stand for human decency?

02:18

Or was the way that the girls flaunted their freedom… inspiring to Sammy?

02:22

We don’t know all that much about our hero, but we get the sense that he feels trapped…

02:29

...in a dead end job, that probably isn’t very fulfilling.

02:34

Not unless he truly gets his kicks by heating up hot dogs.

02:37

When Sammy saw these girls, not playing by the rules…

02:41

…uninhibited by the boundaries set by society…

02:43

…perhaps it just suddenly jolted him out of his living sleepwalk.

02:47

So why did Sammy give his job the ol’ heave-ho?

02:50

Was he freeing his inner playa?

02:53

Taking a stand against jerks everywhere?

02:55

Or saying “good riddance” to The Man? Shmoop amongst yourselves.

Full Transcript