Assignment: Embed examples from the text to demonstrate how “A & P” is a coming-of-age story.
In the short story "A & P", the author John Updike provides an example of a narrator who is
“coming of age.” Sammy experiences a turning point when he makes the decision to go against the
rules and people who have been in charge of his young life. By the end of the story, the narrator faces
adulthood with both regret and acceptance.
The A & P represents the world of Sammy’s youth. The store manager is a friend of his parents,
the adult customers represent the expectations of those around him, and Stokes is both his peer and
living an adult life. Sammy is surrounded by reminders of what is “normal” and expected of him.
Lengel, his manager, is the voice of those expectations, reminding the girls who enter in their bathing
suits that “this isn’t the beach.” Customers play out the daily routines of adults, “sheep pushing their
carts down the aisle… checking oatmeal off their lists.” The narrator describes the expectations the
three girls are ignoring: “Women generally put on a shirt or shorts or something before getting out of
the car.” Even Stokes, a mere three years older than Sammy, already has the responsibility of two
children and a wife at home. The A & P is representative of the restrictions of the narrator’s childhood,
other people’s rules and expectations.
When this world is disrupted by the entrance of the three girls in swimsuits, Sammy forgets, then
begins to question, and finally acts against the expectations of his childhood and the values of the
world in which he was raised.
a. “I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up
or not. I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell.” This shows that Sammy is
not paying attention and then he makes the customer upset.
b. Distracted by the girls’ entrance, Sammy rings up an item twice, enraging the customer in
front of him.
c. Instead of checking with the customer or looking at the register, Sammy “ring it up again
and the customer starts giving me hell.”
Assignment: Embed examples from the text to demonstrate how “A & P” is a coming-of-age story.
Second, the narrator admires the confidently rebellious actions of the girls.
a. “She held her head so high” that Sammy didn't even mind that her neck “looked kind of
stretched.” She looked confident.
b. “She held her head so high her neck, coming up out of those white shoulders, looked
kind of stretched, but I didn’t mind” because she looked confident in her posture.
c. Observing Queenie leading the other two girls through the store, the narrator admires
her confidence: “She held her head so high that her neck…looked kind of stretched.”
Finally, Sammy defies those who have made the rules for him all his young life when he quits his job.
Although driven by both selfish and selfless motives, ultimately, Sammy takes a risk in standing up
against everything the world of the A & P represents.
a. Even when reminded that his actions will have an effect on his parents, Sammy
perseveres in his rebellion, leaving the apron and the bow tie on the counter.
b. “I fold the apron, ‘Sammy’ stitched in red on the pocket, and put it on the counter, and
drop the bow tie on top of it.” This shows the narrator’s rebellion.
c. In rebellion, Sammy “fold the apron…and put it on the counter, and drop the bow tie on
top of it.”
Sammy sheds his uniform, the apron and bowtie, to follow the girls into his own adulthood. Their
absence at the end of the story is Sammy's first adult disappointment - the first of many.