Joshua Cave1

Joshua Cave

Ms. Dorin

English 112

March 24, 2011

Sammy’s World

In John Updikes short story, A&P, the reader sees part of a day in the life of a young man

named Sammy, however, because the story is told in the first-person perspective, the reader does

not know the name of the protagonist until close to the end. Indeed, as a result of the story being

told in the first person view, the reader not only sees the world through Sammy’s eyes, but also

how his mind works: what interests he has, his manner of thinking and talking, and how much

importance he places in grammar. As such, due to the importance of the protagonist, Sammy is

the main literary element that requires closer observation.

Perhaps the first line of the story best describes the protagonist’s interests, “in walks three

girls in nothing but bathing suits” (1). That sentence alone tells the reader two things: one, the

protagonist is male, and two, gives the readers an idea of how old he is. Indeed, even thought the

protagonist is working, he does not take his eyes off of the girls, even to the point of making an

error at the cash register. As the girls continue to shop, he continues to observe them, and even

though he does not know their names, gives them nicknames that describe them as how he sees

them. The girl that stands out the most to the protagonist is called “queenie”. Because he later

quits his job in order to save queenie, leads most readers to conclude that all the protagonist was

after was a female companion.

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Another part of the story that stands out is the colloquial manner in which the protagonist

thinks. Indeed, throughout the story, he speaks of how he feels with a degree of informality, and

sometimes with sarcasm or disdain. As the protagonist watch’s the three girls go down some of

the aisle’s he describes some of the costumer’s reactions, “The sheep pushing their carts down

the aisles…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”(6). This continues throughout the story, and gives readers a clear insight as to how

the protagonist mind works.

One finale piece of information the reader’s observe about the protagonist, is his

grammar. During the course of the story, the protagonist makes errors in punctuation and

spelling, among other things. The sentence that .epitomizes this assertion is the when the

protagonist is describing how his boss reacts to the three girls plea’s of innocence, “His repeating

struck me as funny, as if it hadjust occurred to him, and he had been thinking all these years that

A&P was a great big dune and he was the head lifeguard”(14). Grammar errors are spread

throughout the entire paper, which leads readers to conclude that the protagonist does not have

any interest in English.

The protagonist is the most important character in the story, especially because of the

view point of the story. As such, the protagonist must be believable and seem real. In that regard,

Mr. Updike has succeeded, he has created a young man who displays all the characteristics of a

person of that age. Indeed, as reader see throughout the story, Sammy is something of a

womanizer, wisecracker and ignorant, but he also a romantic and brave. When a story is in the

first person, the protagonist must be the most important person in the story, and Sammy is just

that.