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    Joshua Cave1

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    Joshua Cave
    This document provides a summary and analysis of the main protagonist, Sammy, in John Updike's short story "A&P". In 3 sentences: The summary examines how Sammy's interests and manner of thinking are revealed through the first person perspective, such as his focus on the three girls that enter the store. Details about Sammy's informal and sometimes sarcastic thought patterns as well as his disinterest in grammar are also discussed. The document concludes that Updike successfully created a believable young male protagonist in Sammy by portraying his characteristics of being a womanizer, wisecracker, romantic, and brave.

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    Joshua Cave1

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    Joshua Cave
    89 views2 pages
    This document provides a summary and analysis of the main protagonist, Sammy, in John Updike's short story "A&P". In 3 sentences: The summary examines how Sammy's interests and manner of thinking are revealed through the first person perspective, such as his focus on the three girls that enter the store. Details about Sammy's informal and sometimes sarcastic thought patterns as well as his disinterest in grammar are also discussed. The document concludes that Updike successfully created a believable young male protagonist in Sammy by portraying his characteristics of being a womanizer, wisecracker, romantic, and brave.

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    A&P

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    This document provides a summary and analysis of the main protagonist, Sammy, in John Updike's short story "A&P". In 3 sentences: The summary examines how Sammy's interests and manner of thinking are revealed through the first person perspective, such as his focus on the three girls that enter the store. Details about Sammy's informal and sometimes sarcastic thought patterns as well as his disinterest in grammar are also discussed. The document concludes that Updike successfully created a believable young male protagonist in Sammy by portraying his characteristics of being a womanizer, wisecracker, romantic, and brave.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    89 views2 pages

    Joshua Cave1

    Uploaded by

    Joshua Cave
    This document provides a summary and analysis of the main protagonist, Sammy, in John Updike's short story "A&P". In 3 sentences: The summary examines how Sammy's interests and manner of thinking are revealed through the first person perspective, such as his focus on the three girls that enter the store. Details about Sammy's informal and sometimes sarcastic thought patterns as well as his disinterest in grammar are also discussed. The document concludes that Updike successfully created a believable young male protagonist in Sammy by portraying his characteristics of being a womanizer, wisecracker, romantic, and brave.

    Copyright:

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    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    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.


    Joshua Cave2

    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.

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