Growing Up In John Updike's A & P

The lives we live today contain many moral aspects that would not have been accepted socially fifty or more years ago. Society gives us two choices: to conform or to rebel and escape from society’ restrictions. In the short story “A&P” the author, John Updike, shoes that growing up is a mixture of being rebellious, discovering maturity and the search and desire for individuality. Sammy, the first-person narrator and main character of “A&P”, quits his job for the reason that he seeks to rise above others’ expectations and find himself a career he sees as worthy and sophisticated because he fears to be seen as a “sheep”. At first glance, Sammy seems to present us with a plausible and simple explanation as to why he quits his job as a cashier
at the grocery store: he is standing up for the girls that his employer, Langel, has insulted due to their indecent attire. Sammy tries to sell us on his explanation by mentioning how the girls’ embarrassment at the hands of the manager makes him feel “scrunchy” inside and by his reference to himself as the “unsuspecting hero”after he performs his gesture of heroism. While it's true that Sammy finds the three scantily-clad girls who enter the supermarket attractive, as would any normal nineteen-year-old male, it is hard to believe that Sammy would quit his job to impress the girls, preferably Queenie. Sammy consistently portrays the girl as a stuck-up, spoiled rich kid who is just out to "shake up" the middle-class A & P. The notion that he would quit his job in defense of this person that he so evidently despises is ludicrous. In fact, prior to the description of Lengel's encounter with the girls, Sammy as much as admits the validity of the exact same objection that Lengel has to them, their appearance in swimsuits, when he offers us a description of the A & P's location: in the middle of town, miles from any beach, and where "the women generally put on a shirt or shorts or something before they get out of the car into the street”.
The irony of Sammy’s sense of superiority is that he realizes that, in the eyes of the rich, carefree Queenie, he must seem just like Stokesie and the old fashioned Lengel. His desire to set himself apart from them to prove that he is different compels him to quit his job. However, he announces, “I quit” primarily because he wants the girls to overhear him and seem him as their hero. Sammy’s desire for Queenie, which begins merely as a young man’s interest in a pretty girl, ends up as a desire for escape from the A&P and, in effect his own life. A more likely explanation for Sammy's abrupt resignation from his job is his complete boredom with it. This dissatisfaction with his work situation is plainly seen in his regard for a group that Sammy holds in even more contempt than the girls: the regular, paying customers. His references to them as "sheep," "houseslaves" and "pigs" reveals his attitude toward the group that keeps his employer in business and Sammy in the job he apparently hates.