Life’s hardest lessons are sometimes learned too little, too late. In the short story “A & P”, by John Updike, the main character, Sammy, is a nineteen year-old checker at a local grocery store in a small town just north of Boston. In a matter of a day, he goes from an immature boy with unrealistic ideas and fantasies, to a man who is about to realize how life altering the choices he makes can be.
Updike does an excellent job in the portrayal of his main character, Sammy, as a typical teen-age boy working to help out his family. He leads his readers to believe that the only people who enter the store are old women or women with six children. Sammy refers to these women as sheep. His disdain comes through when
Sammy names the object of his adoration, Queenie, since he has determined that she is the leader of the three. He is captivated by Queenie from her oaky hair and prim face down to her feet paddling along naked. She has unknowingly put Sammy into a hypnotic state. Updike gives his readers the impression that Sammy has lived in isolation up until this one Thursday afternoon.
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