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Watermarks
The Motif of Play in "A & P"
by Deborah L. Abruzzio
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In the short story "A & P" the author, John Updike, uses the motif
of play as one of the main means by which he develops the character of
Sammy, the nineteen-year-old narrator and protagonist of the story. In his many and varied references to play, Sammy reveals, along with his
obvious immaturity, his rich imagination and potential for possible growth.
The story takes place in the summertime of 1960 on a Thursday afternoon. Sammy is employed at the A & P grocery store located in the middle of
a town north of Boston, about five miles from the beach.
Along with Sammy, the other characters involved in this story are
three girls shopping in the A & P in their bathing suits, whom Sammy
names Plaid, Queenie and Big Tall Goony-Goony; Stokesie, Sammy's married
co-worker; and Lengel, the A & P manager.
"A & P" is told from Sammy's point of view. Sammy presents
himself as a nonchalant and flippant young man. He appears to be
somewhat contemptuous of the older people shopping in the store.
However, near the end of the story, we see that he does take responsibility
for his conscience-driven behavior and decision, revealing his passage
out of adolescence into adulthood through the courage of his convictions.
We see Sammy's immaturity at its worst with his snide labeling of
the customers in the A & P. An example of this occurs when he calls
one lady "a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows"
(p.33). Sammy places the blame on her for his mistake at the cash
register. He claims she would have been burned at the stake in Salem
if she had been alive then. In another instance, he refers to the
housewives shopping as "houseslaves in pin curlers" (p.34). He seems
to be fond of calling the grocery shoppers "sheep" because they are either
bunching up together when they are confronted with a scene they do not
understand or following one after the other up and down the aisles.
In another example, Sammy calls a customer buying four giant cans of pineapple
juice "an old party in baggy gray pants" and a bum (p.35). On another
occasion, he refers to customers as "scared pigs in a chute" (p.36) after
they become flustered at being in his check-out line when he suddenly quits
his job in front of them. The generation gap is quite apparent in
all of these passages, at least on Sammy's part.
We see a good example of Sammy's immature machismo after he watches
the three girls walk barefoot through the store in their bathing suits.
He states, "You never know for sure how girls' minds work (do you really
think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass
jar?)" (p.33). His appreciation for the female anatomy on a more
common level is evidenced by his comment regarding Plaid's derriere that
he calls a "sweet broad soft-looking can" (p.33).
Sammy does have some good points in relation to his fertile imagination.
Since he has a tendency to see life as a game, it seems appropriate that
he refers to the whole store as "a pinball machine and I didn't know which
tunnel they'd [the girls] come out of" (p.35).
Sammy's imagination and command of the English language are seen in his
description of Stokesie after the two of them spy the girls in the store.
He says, "Stokesie's married, with two babies chalked up on his fuselage
already, but as far as I can tell that's the only difference" (p.34).
Sammy knows how to use the word "scuttle" (p.35) when he describes Lengel's
behavior of trying to get into his office. We can really appreciate
his intense creativity in some of his descriptions of Queenie. When
he first notices her in the A & P, he says "She didn't look around, not
this queen, she just walked straight on slowly, on these long white prima
donna legs" (p.33). When she pays for her purchase at his register,
he is almost reverent in the handling of her dollar bill as we consider
his statement of "I uncrease the bill, tenderly as you may imagine, it
just having come from between the two smoothest scoops of vanilla I had
even known were there!" (p. 36).
Sammy's rich imagination is at its best, however, after he hears Queenie's
voice for the first time while she is at his register. He slides
"right down her voice into her living room. Her father and the other
men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow ties and the women
were in sandals picking up herring snacks on toothpicks off a big plate
and they were all holding drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs
of mint in them" (p.35).
Sammy reveals his potential for emotional growth near the end of the story.
We see this through his empathy for the three girls when they are embarrassed
by Lengel for wearing their bathing suits in the A & P. We also
see this potential in Sammy's statement after he quits his job: "But
it seems to me that once you begin a gesture it's fatal not to go through
with it" (p.36). "You'll feel this for the rest of your life," Lengel
tells Sammy and Sammy agrees with him (p.37).
Sammy's epiphany at the end of "A & P" gives him some insight into his
future. As he is walking away from the A & P he sees "Lengel in
[his] place in the slot, checking the sheep through. His face was
dark gray and his back stiff, as if he'd just had an injection of iron,
and my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be
to me hereafter" (p.37). Sammy begins his transition from adolescence
into adulthood here. He realizes that if he stays at the A & P
he may end up like Lengel or the other sheep. He wants more out of
life and his fantasy about being Queenie's "unsuspected hero" (p.36) allows
him to escape. Sammy comes to the conclusion that life is not going
to be easy and he is going to make decisions for himself that the people
around him will not necessarily support.
Work Cited
Updike, John. "A & P." Literature (4th ed).
Ed. Robert DiYanni. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998.
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