, was founded over 142 years ago, and still strives for survival today (Patton par.2), is the setting for this short story. A town north of Boston, located about five miles from the beach, conceals the grocery store between "two banks, the Congregational church and the newspaper store and three real-estate offices" (Updike 101). Although there is no mention of the year of this event, it is noted that a young fellow employee at the A&P wants to be manager in the 1990's. Judging from the forty nine cent price of the herring snacks and Schlitz beer, it is probably safe to say the time period could be in the late 1970's or early 1980's. During this assumed time period, women started wearing more revealing clothes and exposing more skin. The wearing of hip huggers and mini skirts would indicate this change in women's apparel. Sammy indicates he is bored with his humdrum surroundings of the A&P. Cool fluorescent lights shine over the neatly stacked packages sitting on rows of shelves that rest on the "checkerboard green-and-cream rubber-tile floor" (100). Sammy does find amusement in watching the regular customers he calls sheep, as they push their carts down the aisles in the same direction, checking off their lists. Sammy thinks not even dynamite will shake the shoppers from their stupor. The shoppers are temporarily interrupted when they notice the barely dressed girls strolling down the aisle against the usual traffic. Stokesie, the other checker, is twenty-two. Although married with children, he [Stokesie] sees nothing wrong in joining Sammy as they ogle and exchange sexual banter with each other, staring at the girls passing by. Sammy realizes that Stokesie's marriage is the only difference between them. The A&P represents a life that Sammy recognizes he does not want, thus making the setting a contributing factor in Sammy's decision.
Sammy's character is dynamic. In the beginning he acts like an immature kid as he dissects how each of the girls look in their respective bathing suits, but in the end, his values appear to have changed and we believe he has matured a little as he notes "[M]y stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world [is] going to be to me hereafter" (104).