A&P.
"A & P by John Updike is a very descriptive and comical account of an adolescent's brief encounter with a group of three girls while working his daily shift. Through the use of setting we see how the main character, Sammy, sees the girls as a refuge from his daily routine, while the story has a deeper overall meaning, representing the conflicts of change. .
The first statement reads, "In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits (468)."" It is as if up until that point in the day, Sammy had been oblivious to the rest of the world and the day had only begun on the girls' entrance. The girls seem to be a stark contrast, to the otherwise very plain store décor and customers. Sammy, like any other person in a dead end job, is constantly looking for any sort of escape from the monotony of his job and the three girls are the perfect refuge. To emphasize the routine of the store, Sammy refers to the everyday customers as "sheep-. Indicating they all follow the same steady movements as one another and there is seldom any differentiation. Contrary to this the girls are described in great detail and with great fascination. From the moment the three girls enter the store, Sammy watches their every movement. He analyzes each girl, starting with "the one that caught my eye first (468)."" While analyzing her, Sammy soon realizes he is in a daze. I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not (468)."" The reader gets a picture of a situation they have probably encountered numerous times. Sammy is typical cashier standing with a blank look on his face, staring into oblivion, unaware of what he is doing, while the line at his checkout begins to back up. After briefly returning to the real world and serving the customer, Sammy resumes watching the girls. He describes two of them, one as being quite plain the other, "The kind of girl other girls think is very "striking- and "attractive- but never quite makes it( )That's why they like her (468).
