Before Reading

-- Title: A & P is the story of a supermarket in the US. But why is the story named after it?
-- Setting & Narration: From the first sentence "In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I'm in the third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see them until they're over by the bread," we should notice a few things:

1) that this is a first-person narration and it plunges us right into the middle of action (there's no introduction to the setting)
2) the narrator (Sammy) is straightforward and colloquial in style, and he uses the present tense here!
3) with the mentioning of "check-out slot," we know that he is in a store.

As you read ...

1) What is Sammy’s image of himself? What is your image of Sammy? (Is it the same with the one presented in the filmic adapation?) How did you feel about Sammy while and after reading the story? When and how did your feelings about him change if any?
2) How do you think Sammy, the narrator, feels about the bikini girls while observing them? How do you feel about them? How are Sammy’s and your emotional responses similar or different?
3) What details about the ordinary supermarket stand out for you as particularly true to life? What does this close attention to detail contribute to the story?

After the 1st Reading: (Please remember the general questions suggested for making your annotations.)
1. Main Characters and Minor Ones:

a. Sammy as a character and narrator:
1). From the language and descriptions in the first two paragraphs, can you imagine the kind of person our narrator is? And how he looks at his job? Why, for instance, does he see one woman as a "witch" and the other customers as "sheep"? And the store as a "pinball machine"?
2). What does Sammy think about his "Queen"? How does he look at the other two?
3). What does Sammy's short fantasy about Queenie's family party reveal about Sammy? Are there any social class conflicts in the story?
4). As you read through this very subjective narrative, do you agree with the narrator? About his judgment of the witch, the sheep and the Queen? In other words, do you find him "a reliable narrator"?

b. Queenie, Plaid and Big Tall Goony Goony: How do the Queen and the other girls behave before and when Lengel appears?
Is there anything wrong in wearing bikini to a supermarket in the center of a town?

c. Stokesie & Lengel: What do they represent for Sammy?

2. Language:

1) How do you characterize Sammy's language style?
2) Have you noticed how he uses the present and past tenses? Can you explain why he switches between the two tenses?

3. Structure:

1) As mentioned above, the story starts right in the middle of its action (in media res). How do you divide it up into different parts?
2) Where is the major turning point?
3) Before paragraphy 12, there is a larger space, so we can assume that this iis where the author/narrator intended this to be a major turning point: "Now here comes the sad part of the story, at least my family says it's sad but I don't think it's sad myself. " What is the function of this sentence?
If we use this space to divide up the story into two parts

4. Plot development & Theme:

1) What do you think is the reason that Sammy quits, even when Lengel offers him a second chance? Does he regret his decision or not?
2) What does Sammy mean when he says at the end of the story that he “felt how hard the world was going to be to [him] hereafter?”
3) Do you find him comic or heroic? Does he grow in this story? . How does Updike use light as a symbol in the story?

1. Sammy's Language: does a closer reading of his language make you more sympathetic with him? About what is he observant and critical?

a). What do you think of Sammy's descriptions of the three bikini-clad girls and the customers? Does it reveal anything about Sammy's own desires and hypocrisies? Is he correct in any way in his judgment of the customers?

(pars 2-4: his description of Queenie) She came down a little hard on her heels, as if she didn't walk in her bare feet that much, putting down her heels and then letting the weight move along to her toes as if she was testing the floor with every step, putting a little deliberate extra action into it. 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?) but you got the idea she had talked the other two into coming in here with her, and now she was showing them how to do it, walk slow and hold yourself straight.

... the straps were down. They were off her shoulders looped loose around the cool tops of her arms, and I guess as a result the suit had slipped a little on her, so all around the top of the cloth there was this shining rim. If it hadn't been there you wouldn't have known there could have been anything whiter than those shoulders. With the straps pushed off, there was nothing between the top of the suit and the top of her head except just her, this clean bare plane of the top of her chest down from the shoulder bones like a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light. I mean, it was more than pretty.

... She had sort of oaky hair that the sun and salt had bleached, done up in a bun that was unravelling, and a kind of prim face. Walking into the A&P with your straps down, I suppose it's the only kind of face you can have.

(par 5: his description of the three girls vs. the other customers)The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle—the girls were walking against the usual traffic (not that we have one-way signs or anything)—were pretty hilarious. You could see them, when Queenie's white shoulders dawned on them, kind of jerk, or hop, or hiccup, but their eyes snapped back to their own baskets and on they pushed.

(par 11: his description of the three girls under the others' eyes) All that was left for us to see was old McMahon patting his mouth and looking after them sizing up their joints. Poor kids, I began to feel sorry for them, they couldn't help it.

(par 14: his imagining/visualizing his going to her living room in her house) --> his awareness of their class difference

2. The Location of A & P: would the same event happen in a city?

(par 10: about the position of the supermarket)
-- the supermarket is in the middle of the town, which is north of Boston and five miles away from the beach.
-- it is kind of in a buseness center, facing two banks and the Congregational church and the newspaper store
-- the people here: the women generally put on a shirt or shorts or something before they get out of the car into the street; some people in this town haven't seen the ocean for twenty years.
--> In other words, the story's setting is a typical small town in the US.

Extension:

1. Sammy's observation: What do you think about Sammy's interpretation of the interaction among the three girls? Is he observant?
2. Lengel vs. the Girls: Do you think Lengel's conflict with the girls is an issue of conservatism or social propriety?
3. Sammy's action: What do you think about his decision to quit? Would you do that if you were him? Why do you think Sammy calls himself the girls"unsuspected hero" towards the end of the story?
(par 22) The girls, and who'd blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say "I quit" to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they'll stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero. They keep right on going, into the electric eye...
4.Did you experience or do you know anyone experienced anything similar to what Sammy has undergone? Please describe that experience and then connect that experience with your responses to and interpretation of the story. How did that experience shape your responses and interpretation of the story?

References and Further Questions:

1. Updike said about stories: "I want stories to startle and engage me within the first few sentences and in their middle to widen or deepen or sharpen my knowledge of human activity, and to end by giving me a sense of completed statement." Does "A & P" do that? What is its completed statement?

2. The following are two (probably non-professional) readers' reviews of Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories, where "A & P" is from. Do you agree with them?

DonaldDuck7@juno.com, 02/28/97, rating=10:
This book was good!
The reason the book was good, is that it allowed me to step outside myself to see myself. It was very revealing in a way that it
showed how life is really ironic in a weird sort of way! It also revealed that sometimes you have to go against the grain so that
you can really live life. I really liked this story and I would recommend it to anyone who is open to new ideas.

cm5hdpjw@bs47a.staffs.ac.uk, 01/09/97, rating=10:
The American short story at it's best.
A collection of short stories by one of Americas finest writers which is most notable for 'A&P', a classic even though it
concerns a simple incident in a lowly checkout operators' life. It is a thrilling and delightful read : in a 1950's store, a cynical assistant drearily watches the comings and goings of the shoppers, only to suddenly risk his livelihood for the sake of the pretty girl who one day ruins his regular routine. A brilliant study of the conflicts of desire and choice, and their effect on personality.

The two responses above are quite different: the first one involving subjective identification and the second, objective analysi of Sammy's position in 1950's. How would you respond to the story?

References:

1. A&P: a supermarket in US, seeming to join “the Atlantic and Pacific” together; here its website. According to M. Gilbert Porter, it represents "the common denominator of middle-class suburbia, an appropriate symbol for [the] mass ethic of a consumer-conditioned society" (source)

2. A short filmic adaptation (Note: the film is different from the story. Although it may help you visualize the supermarket and the town--details you are not familiar with, see it as another text. You don't need to agree with its interpretation of, say, the characters and the plot.)

3. Interview with John Updike about the story. 1, 2