A&P is story written by John Updike about a young boy who works at a food market. I interpreted the theme of Updike’s A&P to be is that the choices you make will always come with consequences. For example in this story Sammy makes choices that he believes make him a hero but I understood it very differently than that.
First off, Sammy is a young boy who repeatedly views women as purely objects leading me to believe he is sexist. Sammy seems to view women as if they are nothing more than their appearances. The first example of Sammy being sexist is when he criticizes a woman’s appearance and then proceeds to say the following about her “She gives me a little snort in passing, if she'd been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem.” This quote shows his negative feelings towards women since there are no words even similar spoken about any men in the story. The next example of Sammy being sexist comes through a conversation he and his foil Stokesie have, "Oh Daddy," Stokesie said beside me. "I feel so faint." "Darling," I said. "Hold me tight." In this particular quote they’re fawning over how “the queen” looks in the store. In A&P Sammy’s sexism is what is plays such a large role in the choices he makes.
Could Sammy be a hero for the girls in this story or is it just he’s so caught up in himself that that’s what he convinces himself? After the girls were kicked out of the store for their “inappropriate attire”, Sammy quits to what he tried to make seem like standing up for them. However that is not at all the message I received. Sammy seemed to be only quitting for personal gain not because he cared about what they could and could not do. The best piece of evidence that Sammy quit for himself is this quote “I look around for my girls, but they're gone, of course.” The fact that he calls them “his girls” shows that he feels as if they owe him and even as if he owns them. The next q...