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  • Essay / Sammy the Social Climber in A&P by John Updike - 823

    Sammy the Social Climber in A&PMen will go to extreme measures to impress women. This is the case in the story “A & P” written by John Updike. Sammy, a cashier at a supermarket, shows a classic example of a man trying to impress a woman. His rash decision to quit his job was a bad decision and will definitely have a negative effect on him in the future. Sammy seems doomed from the first sentence when he says, “On a walk, three girls wear nothing but swimsuits” (Updike 1026 ). He notices every little detail of the girls, from the color of their swimsuits to their tan lines. At that point, he checks on “one of those checkout supervisors” and gets yelled at for calling out his item twice (Updike 1026). This distraction from his work shows his interest in girls, especially the one he calls "Queenie". To Sammy's delight, Queenie and her two friends choose his crate to purchase the "Fancy Herring Snacks with Pure Sour Cream" (Updike 1027). When she puts the snacks on the counter, Sammy notices that her hands are free. As he wonders where the money will come from, she removes the dollar bills “from the hollow in the center of her pink spiked top” (Updike 1027). This gesture puts Sammy in total admiration of the girl, and this is the turning point, it is at this moment that he makes the decision to try to impress her. His big break comes when store manager Lengel visits Sammy's line. “Girls, this is not the beach,” is the first thing Lengel says to the girls when he sees them (Updike 1028). Queenie explains that her mother sent her to get herring snacks, implying that since her mother sent her, it's perfectly normal for her to be in the store wearing only a swimsuit. While Lengel and Queenie argue, Sammy visualizes himself at Queenie's house at a party. In his imagination he sees, "his father and the other men were standing in ice coats and bow ties and the women were in sandals picking snacks of herring on toothpicks onto a big glass plate and they were all holding drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them” (Updike 1028).