Plot and "A&P" by John Updike

A&P by John Updike

“A&P” by John Updike, is a short story that follows Sammy, a sarcastic cashier who is not a huge fan of his job but creates the best out of a bad situation by creating scenarios about the customers that he is confronted with on the regular. Through these internal monologues with himself, he characterizes these three girls that come into his job one day. Out of the three girls he becomes hyper fixated on one of them whom he names “Queenie”. This young woman to Sammy represents what he wants, freedom. Throughout the story Sammy is constantly reminded that he is not free from the grocery store and Queenie is the solution to that inner conflict. To him she’s a rich carefree girl who gets to live a life of freedom. Living in a small town where everything is the same all the time, and of course, having to conform to his surroundings, Queenie coming in and wearing a bathing suit is ironic and a break from the reality that Sammy must live in.

Throughout this encounter Sammy decides he is going to quit because he wants to show off to the girls after they’re confronted by the store manager due to their dress. They don’t acknowledge it and due to Sammy’s brash decision he is left to navigate a harder life because he broke the small-town norm and will have to face his family. Throughout this, the theme of conformity (the small town and the grocery store) and the Individualism (Queenie and Sammys inner monologue about her) are at odds and create an interesting conflict throughout the story.

Short Story Plot Idea for Class

Dennis (the character I created from class) is conflicted with himself and his chronic “not caring” attitude that he has in life. One day Dennis is confronted with the opportunity to put together a computer that a wild man left in his place of work, and disregarding the advice of others decides to put it together. Ignoring every sign that perhaps this is a bad idea, he does it anyway and in an almost supernatural turn of events, gets trapped in his living room with only himself and a mirror. Due to this, Dennis must confront himself, and the way that he does so is having full on conversations with himself in the mirror, this is ironic because Dennis judges’ people all the time but now he is no better than the people he judges. The man in the mirror is who Dennis doesn’t think he is, but he is. He becomes more conflicted with himself but when he realizes he doesn’t have to be like this anymore, Dennis finds the solution to being trapped in his living room with the mirror. I really like the idea of having an internal conflict where the character is trapped with "themselves". That's the major conflict I want to focus on. 


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