A & P Study Guide

A & P

A & P by John Updike

A&P is a darkly comic story about a teenage grocery clerk and three young women in swimsuits. The titular grocery store forms an overarching commercial narrative and ties neatly into Sammy the clerk's prepackaged evaluation of each girl as a sexual commodity. Sammy's evaluation and the prudish attitudes of his manager come to an anticlimactic head when Sammy rejects the standards of the A&P market only to find that his actions have no significant consequences.

A & P Book Notes

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