Charaterization Essay

In the short story, "A & P," John Updike's character, Sammy, is a clerk at the

A&P supermarket. His thoughts, language, and attitude throughout the story indicate he

is a narrow-minded, cynical, typical teenager with a strong curiosity in the opposite sex

and extreme sense of detail. He is a typical rebellious and smart-mouthed teenager who is

very bored of the way he lives and is easily swayed by the appeal of three girls who

comes in to the store. Uniquely, Updike uses Sammy to link food items in the store to

develop characterization with the store manager; Lengel, the customers and the three

girls. Sammy becomes a full and well-developed character in this short story.

Sammy shows his consistency in only one of four different areas. He was talking

about the girls, the store, the customers and his co-workers, the town and beach and even

himself. Consistency might make Sammy seem less complex but the characterization lets

the reader add his own traits to Sammy and think that he is probably more complicated

than is depict in the story. His attitudes and actions for example, like hollering " I quit",

so that girls would turn around and crown him their hero, exhibit him to be weak, but

he's still a full and well developed character.

Sammy's appearance is not brought up in the short story. John Updike does not

describe not one thing about Sammy or how he wants him to appear, which makes

Sammy a well developed character. Sammy doesn't take any action up until the end of

the story. His desire to set himself apart from them, to prove that he is different compels him to quit his job. Sammy's action does not matter to him at the moment, but he worries

about quitting his job at the A & P and feels guilty about his rash actions. He is not as

self-assured as he seems. There is no communication between Sammy and his boss,

which takes the action away from the story.

Sammy notices everything around him, and he drinks in every

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