Sammy’s Views of Other People as Seen in “A&P”

John Updike’s “A&P” is set in a grocery store just north of Boston and not too far from the beach. It is a glimpse into a day starting like any other but then shaken up by three teenage girls in their bathing suits. The main character is a nineteen year old boy named Sammy. Sammy is like any other teenager. He has very specific views of the different social classes of the store’s customers and views of people in general. The story hints at many of Sammy’s ideas about different people, from mindless drones, to daring pack animals, to uptight old geezers.
Sammy views the majority of the store’s customers as mindless drones. They are mostly middle-aged, middle-class women. He refers to one woman in particular as a “cash-register-watcher” (pg. 606). A lot of middle class women watch the register to make sure they are not over charged. He immediately puts this woman into this category because she caught him in a mistake while ringing her up. Several times throughou...