AP Essay -- essays papers

A&P In the story â€Å"A&P† by John Updike, the main character Sammy is portrayed as a typical young male. When the three young females enter the store, he is quickly distracted from his duties. As he watches the young girls move throughout the store, he describes each of their bodies in detail giving away his overwhelming sexual awareness. Sammy is so distracted by these â€Å"bathing beauties† that he rings up some old bat’s item twice and makes her angry. It is made quite evident that Sammy is finely attuned to each and every movement of these young ladies’ as they amble down each and every aisle throughout the store. Sammy’s carnal mindedness is first made apparent in the story when he describes the â€Å"chunky one† in her green, two-piece bathing suit. Sammy describes this girl as having â€Å"a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two creasants of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the back of her legs† (Updike 369). Sammy’s hormones kick into overdrive when he sets his eyes upon this girl’s overly fleshy backside. Sammy states that he likes what he sees even though this chic is chunky and her butt is soft and wide. It is quite clear that Sammy has a fetish of some sort with big â€Å"cans† when he refers to the girl as â€Å"the plump one in plaid, that I liked better from the back-a really sweet can† (Updike 372). Next Sammy focuses his attention on the tall, black haired girl. He views this young lady as pretty but not beautiful-â€Å"the kind of girl other girls think is very â€Å"striking† and â€Å"attractive† but never quite makes it† (Updike 370). Sammy’s sexual interest in this young female is described very overtly as he states â€Å"not that as raw material she was so bad† (Updike 373... ... the towel† and follow these affluent broads. As he looks at Queenie’s breasts that he describes as â€Å"the two smoothest scoops of vanilla I had even known were there† (Updike 373), Sammy makes his final decision to quit. It is evident that he did this in hopes to impress these women by the way in which he loudly announces his resignation to the manager. This was Sammy’s last, pitiful attempt to get these rich girls to notice him and take him to their world of utopia. Sammy soon realized that these girls either did not hear what he said, or may have heard and did not give a rip or even notice that he existed. At this point, I believe he felt like an idiot. The realization of the stupidity of his action is acknowledged by Sammy at the end of the story when he states that â€Å"his stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter† (Updike 373).