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Questions and its answer for the assignment spring 2018...

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ENG 192 January 28, 2018

1. Why, for instance, does he see one woman as a "witch" and the others as "sheep"? And the store as a "pinball machine"? Sammy describes them in this way because it reflects his attitude. Updike uses the firstperson point of view and the present tense to put the reader inside Sammy's head. We are seeing the events unfold from the mind of a rather uneducated, discontent teenager. His frustration and angst are clear when he refers to the one shopper as a witch - "if she'd been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem.” Comments like these perfectly reflect his hatred of not only the customers but his job too. Sammy refers to the store as a “pinball machine” because, as a nineteen-year-old, that is probably the most natural simile that comes to his mind. Plus, it reflects his anticipation at what watching them travel down the various aisles. Sammy also refers to the women shoppers as “sheep”, for they seem to blindly follow along on their paths throughout the store and their lives. As a single young man. Sammy doesn’t have that routine or sense of purpose in his life. Even though he ridicules the women in the store and Stokeise (his coworker) and Lengel (his boos), he fails to see that at least they all have purposes. The women are raising families, Stokesie is married and providing for his family, and Lengel is running a business. But Sammy himself is just an angry young man who makes a foolish ploy at trying to impress the girls and gets fired. 2. Can you identify the central character of “A & P" in the second sentence of the story? From the beginning of the story he talks about the “sheep” or followers in his town. To him everybody acts and dresses the same way. While reading, we get the sense that Sammy wants to break out but is not sure how he can, when he sees the girls, especially

queenie, he sees that there are people who are able to break out of what is expected. By quitting his job, Sammy shows that he is gaining power to do the same. 3. What is the dramatic situation? Three barefoot girls in bathing suits walk into an A & P grocery store, shocking the customers but drawing the admiration of the two young men working the cash registers. Eventually, the manager notices the girls and tells them that they should be decently dressed when they enter the store and that in the future, they will have to follow the store's policy and cover their shoulders. As the girls are leaving, one of the cashiers, Sammy, tells the manager he quits. He does this partly to impress the girls and partly because he feels the manager took things too far and didn't have to embarrass the young women. The story ends with Sammy standing alone in the parking lot, the girls long gone. He says that his "stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter." 4. Write down a list of dramatic events from "A & P." What observations can you make about their arrangement? What can you say about the plot? According to the story, “He comes over and says, ‘Girls, this isn’t the beach”. The dramatic conflict become apparent when the manager said these words and then started a fight between himself and those girls. The second when Sammy smiled and mocked his boss brings the crisis, for it makes the manager feel madder and the fight more severe, also prediction he is going to lose his job. As for the climax, in my opinion, is Sammy’s quit, because this choice makes him lose both his job and his future. The aftermath that his impulse produced is the most important and bad thing that the story wants to tell. The manager said “Girls, this isn’t the beach.” It is a dramatic conflict. They started a fight at that time. When Sammy said, “I quit” it fetches the crisis. That makes manager feel mad and unbelievable. Also, it is a climax of the story. Sammy lost his future when he said, “I quit.” 5. why, exactly, does Sammy quit his job?

At first, he just tried to direct his sympathy and interest the girls’ attention. However, after he has spoken out these words, “I quit” he just understood that it was a bad decision and he should not have done this, but he cannot go back to the start because of his pride, as he said, “But it seems to me that once you begin a gesture it’s fatal not to go through with it”. Therefore, there is not really his sympathy but his pride and common-sense lead to this bad conclusion.

6. Does anything lead you to expect Sammy to make some gesture of sympathy for the three girls? What incident earlier in the story (before Sammy quits) seems a foreshadowing?

According to the story, “His repeating this struck me as funny, as if it had just occurred to him, and he had been thinking all these years the A&P was a great big dune and he was the head lifeguard”. Sammy’s smile and the narrator’s diction of “lifeguard” lead me to expect Sammy to show his sympathy. Besides, “It just having come from between the two smoothest scoops of vanilla I had ever known were there”, this metaphor that the author uses also shows Sammy’s admiration to those girls. At the beginning of the third paragraph on page 3, “Now here comes the sad part of the story”. This foreshadows that something bad is going to happen next.

7. What do you understand form the conclusion of the story? What doe Sammy mean when he acknowledges “how hard the world was going to be…hereafter”? He means the world is so tough for low classes people. He doesn’t even know where he should go after he quit. His stomach fell as his life and his future fell, for he was so argumentative and obsessed with those girls’ beauty that he lost his job and also his parent’s hope. The word “hard” has several different meanings in different situations. First, he left his job so that other customers and manager would become hard, for a cashier has gone their there were still many people waiting for checking. Then, his life will become hard because he just abandoned his job for those unworthy girls and no one

cares about him. Finally, his parents will be hard because they are friends of the manager for many years and things will go embarrassed between them for his quit. 8. What comment does Updike – through Sammy – make on supermarket society?

Sammy feels so boring when he works in supermarket because he uses “sheep” “house slave” to describe customers. He should not be so unwary. “Once you begin a gesture it’s fatal not to go through with it”. People should keep calm and rational in front of everyone. Also, the outrage of the manager can cause a crisis for him. He should have deliberated clearly before saying any word or making any choices....