Growing Up in a Few Short Minutes

John Updike’s A and P may appear to be a humorous narrative about the ordinary daily life of a young adult in a grocery store. Hidden beneath this story is a coming-of-age tale involving an adolescent boy dealing with the overwhelming pressures of growing and learning to accept the repercussions of his decisions. Though A and P may be quite short and may not span a long period of time in this boy’s life, it manages to capture the essence of the hardships of Sammy’s maturing. Similar to J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Updike’s A and P tackles numerous significant adolescent themes.

The main happenings of A and P does not come until Lengel, the store manager, arrives to tell the beach-attired young women, “Girls, this isn’t the beach” (12). To the reader, this statement appears to be a reasonable assertion to make in the presence of underdressed youths in a supermarket. The girls, however, take offense to what they believe is an unnecessary display of authoritative power on the part of Lengel. They display one of the main themes of adolescent development, a resistance to authority. The girls go on to start an unnecessary argument, creating a big scene with everyone in supermarket watching, instead of simply agreeing to come decently dressed on their next visit. The fact that the three young ladies would rather create this scene of defiance to authority rather than comply to a reasonable request displays the theme of adolescent rebelliousness. The rebelliousness of these girls brings out Sammy’s inner defiance, upon his seeing this big scene.

At this point in the story, Sammy could have simply rung up the herring snacks and ended the incident. He chose not to do so for a couple of reasons. First, like a typical teenager, Sammy was attracted to the girls in bikinis and wanted to impress them. Ever since the three girls walked through the doors of the supermarket, Sammy had been closely eyeing them like a lion following its prey. He noticed everything about the girls, from their body shapes, to the way that they walked, to the clothes they were wearing. Sammy’s close attention to these details shows that he is interested in and attracted to these girls, as any nine-teen-year-old by working at a supermarket would be. Due to his attraction to the girls, Sammy wants to impress them when they defy the manager by a similar display of a rebellious nature. Sammy explains that he quickly declares “I quit […] hoping they’ll stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero” (21). Clearly, part of the reason Sammy resigns from his job was to impress the girls. He hoped they would notice his standing up for them and think he was a heroic gentleman, saving them from great supermarket embarrassment. Sammy was in clear disappointment when the girls failed to notice his courageous action.

However, Sammy’s main reason for quitting was not to catch the eye of the three ladies. As a typical adolescent in a story about growing up, Sammy wished to express his rebellious nature to an authority figure. Sammy’s primary motive for quitting was to express a senseless defiance of authority. His purpose becomes evident when Lengel questions Sammy’s decision and upon second thought, Sammy explains to the reader that “remembering how he made that pretty girl blush makes me so scrunchy inside I punch the No Sale tab” (30). Sammy is cleary irritated at the condescending way that Lengel treated the younger ladies. He views Lengel as the authoritative figure abusing his managerial powers to boss around three innocent girls. Although this view might not be accurate, it is the way in which Sammy’s defiant teenage mind perceived it. Sammy felt an instinctive urge to seize an opportunity to rebel against the supermarket hierarchy and took it. In this sense, Sammy displays a key element of the main character in a coming-of-age story by his rebelliousness. This rebelliousness begins Sammy’s process of maturation and learning.

Another main component of a coming-of-age story is the main character’s being forced to deal with the impact of his actions and learning from them accordingly. Sammy experiences this situation directly after he leaves the supermarket and comes to the realization of “how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter” (31). Being a nine-teen-year-old who just lost a job and would have to deal with unhappy parents would certainly be a difficult situation. However, in my opinion, that situation is what Sammy is referring to. Sammy has just come to the realization that in the future he must begin to make decisions on his own and accept the repercussions of these decisions. By quitting his job and thinking about the future, Sammy suddenly recognizes that his life was in his own hands. Sammy observes that he himself will have to make choices in life and accept the impact of these choices, no matter how unfortunate they might be. This realization is the final element of a coming-of-age story, when the main character grows up and learns an important life lesson. At this point, the reader notices how much Sammy has matured throughout the story. He started as a teenager eyeing some bikini-clad girls and ended as a young adult ready to make decisions for himself.

Although the reader only observes Sammy for a few pages, he or she feels as if Sammy has grown up right in front of his or her eyes. Sammy’s act of rebellion that leads to his learning of a vital life lesson makes A and P a coming-of-age novel that deals with many significant themes of adolescence. John Updike skillfully compacts these themes into an extremely brief story of youth development. (953)