The short story "A & P" by John Updike involves a young narrator, Sammy, who.
attempts to make a heroic gesture upon three girls "in nothing but bathing suits" (Updike 12) by .
quitting his job. Sammy appears to be highly sensitive to class differences, and he struggles to be .
heroic by defending privileged upper class girls who do not even acknowledge his existence .
(McFarland 323). After the girls exit, Sammy is left feeling "how hard the world was going to be .
to me hereafter" (Updike 17). Consequently, Sammy seems to be a juvenile delinquent struggling .
to rise above the confinement of the lower class to the elite, upper class. Updike's use of .
figurative language, irony, and tone in Sammy's characterization accentuates the hopeless .
remorse that Sammy feels by the end of the story.
The first use of figurative language in the story appears in Updike's creation of Sammy's .
adolescent diction. Sammy's slang demonstrates his lower class background in passages such as .
"She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can" (Updike 12) and .
"some such gunk you wonder they waste the wax on" (14). Sammy's choice of words in .
describing adults also portrays his adolescent disregard for authority. He shares, "She's one of .
these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no .
eyebrows.if she'd been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem" (12). .
Sammy describes most of the customers in the A & P as animals (Peck). The adults become .
"sheep pushing their carts down the aisle" (Updike 13) and "scared pigs in a chute" (16). .
Sammy's voice and humorous descriptions of the supermarket undercut the serious situation .
apparent at the story's end. Additionally, Sammy's lower class character becomes apparent .
2.
