A&P: Review

John Updike’s A&P reminds of a very modern-day story of one hero refusing to be a corporate slave. Sammy, the main character and the narrator, is working the cash register, seemingly minding his own business. So does the 22-year-old Stokesie, a married guy with two kids. When four beauties shuffle into the store in bathing suits, the young salespeople’s lives brighten up. They both realize that they live lives of quiet desperation in that store, following orders from dull and boorish people, serving crowds of “sheep,” and getting an occasional “witch” who watches the cash register’s every ring. So, when Lengel scolds the young ladies for coming in in their bathing suits, that is about enough for Sammy. He seems like he had been contemplating quitting anyway, and this incident was just the last straw, because the decision comes very easy and quickly to him. When he goes out into the parking lot, he can see no girls, because they are gone. Of course, he hopes they would be there. But there is only a married couple with noisy kids. However, Sammy does not regret his decision. He simply feels that he has gone against the whole world, because he says, “and my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.” This is a story of a kid who has the guts to go against corporate slavery but does not know yet that it is perfectly all right to do so, even in 1961, when the story was written.