Sammy's Mind Games at the A&P

Sammy’s Mind Games at the A&P

In “A&P” John Updike uses the motif of play as one of the means by which he develops the character of Sammy, the nineteen-year-old cashier and protagonist of the story. A motif is a writer’s deliberate repetition in one form or another of an idea as a way of developing character, theme, and story. Sammy, as the narrator of the story, allows the reader to get into his mind. The reader sees things from his point of view and gets to know the young cashier’s thoughts, many of which are about fun and games. An article about John Updike in Critical Survey of Short Fiction Vol. 6 claims that although Updike sometimes adventures into myth and experimentation, he typically uses a realistic technique depicting American middle-class characters in ordinary situations. Most of his fiction is about the virtues and shortcomings of American life. This is evident in the character of Sammy in A&P. The analysis goes on to explain that his short stories are a cau...