A&P Summary & Analysis

Three girls in bathing suits walk into the local A&P grocery store as Sammy, the nineteen-year-old narrator, rings up the groceries for a woman in her fifties he describes as " a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows." Sammy is distracted by the sight of them – first seeing a "chunky" girl wearing a green plaid suit and analyzing her tan – and he accidentally rings up a pack of crackers twice, causing the woman to complain and snort as he sorts things out. Sammy imagines that the woman has been watching cash registers for the past forty years, eager to find a mistake.

After the woman leaves, Sammy watches the girls walk down an aisle, and he describes each of them. There's the girl in green plaid, whose bathing suit looks new, and another girl with frizzed hair, a sunburn, and a long chin, who Sammy describes as the type of girl who other girls find "striking" but who they know won't truly make it. Finally, Sammy describes the girls' leader, a self-possessed girl of medium height who carries herself like some kind of queen, she walks deliberately and looks straight ahead while the others follow along more meekly. Sammy says that you never know how girls' minds work (and questions whether there's even a mind in there) but it seems that the leader talked the other two girls into coming into the shop in their bathing suits.

Sammy continues to describe the leader, who wears a "dirty-pink" bathing suit with the straps down. The straps loop loosely around the tops of her arms, causing the suit to slip a little so that her tan-line shows around the rim of the bathing suit. Sammy admires the plane of her chest, describing it as "more than pretty." She also has oaky hair and a prim face, according to Sammy, and holds her head high.

Sammy continues to admire her, and he believes she can sense Sammy's and Stokesie's eyes on her, but she doesn't acknowledge them. Sammy watches her turn to confer with the other two girls as they walk down the aisle to the meat counter. He observes as "the fat one with the tan" considers a pack of cookies, and he watches the reactions of the store's other customers to the girls. The other store-goers notice the girls with surprise but return quickly to their own carts, and Sammy bets that someone could set off dynamite in the A&P without getting a reaction. A few women Sammy describes as "house-slaves in pin-curlers" glance back at the girls disapprovingly, however. As Sammy explains, seeing girls wearing bathing suits on a beach is one thing, but seeing them in an A&P grocery store is surprising.

Stokesie, another clerk, also ogles the girls and jokes with Sammy. Only a few years older than Sammy, the twenty-two year old Stokesie already has a wife and two kids, and he aspires to manage the A&P one day. Sammy explains that the town is situated five minutes from a beach, and women usually put on shirts and shorts before coming into the store—and usually, these are older women with several children, so nobody really cares how they're dressed. According to Sammy, the town is north of Boston, and there are people living there who haven't seen the ocean in years.

The girls reach the meat counter and ask McMahon for something, and he points them in a direction before ogling them as they walk away. At this point, Sammy begins to feel a little sorry for the girls. He says, "Poor kids…they couldn't help it."

It's a quiet day at the store, and Sammy waits for the girls to come around the corner. As they appear with lead girl, whom Sammy now refers to as Queenie, still leading the way, she chooses between Sammy's and Stokesie's registers, but an elderly customer reaches Stokesie first. Queenie hands Sammy a jar of Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream for 49 cents and pulls a folded dollar bill from the cleavage in her top, which Sammy finds "so cute."

Lengel, the store's manager and a dreary Sunday school teacher, comes inside the A&P after haggling with a truck of cabbages on the lot and catches sight of the girls. He reprimands them, announcing that "this isn't the beach." Queenie blushes and explains that her mother told her to buy herring snacks, which immediately sets Sammy to imagining the type of high-class background Queenie comes from. Sammy imagines her parents throwing a fancy gathering with cocktails and herring snacks and mentally contrasts the image with his parents' parties, which involve lemonade and beer.

Lengel repeats that the store's not a beach, which strikes Sammy as funny and makes him smile. Lengel disapproves of Sammy's smile, but continues to focus on the girls, saying that they must be "decently dressed" before entering the store. Queenie, suddenly regaining her sense of place in relation to the store workers, replies that they are decent, to which Lengel responds that he doesn't want to argue and tells the girls to come into the store with their shoulders covered next time—it's store policy.

The store is quiet after this scene, with the customers nervously converging on Stokesie's lane. Lengel asks Sammy if he's rung up the purchase yet, and Sammy responds that he hasn't and rings it up absentmindedly. As the girls hurry out of the store, Sammy says, "I quit," in time for them to hear, but they continue out of the store, paying no attention.

Sammy informs Lengel that he didn't have to embarrass the girls, but Lengel replies that the girls were embarrassing the store. Sammy responds with a nonsense phrase—"Fiddle-de-do"—and pulls off his store uniform, leaving the apron and bowtie on the counter. Lengel tells Sammy that he doesn't want to do this to his parents and that he'll feel the repercussions of this for the rest of his life. Sammy has the sense that what Lengel is saying is true, but he continues to go through with quitting when he remembers how Lengel made Queenie blush.

Sammy saunters outside in the white shirt his mother ironed for him the night before and looks around for the girls, but they're gone. Looking back through the windows into the A&P, Sammy can see that Lengel has taken his spot at the cash register. As he watches Lengel, whose back looks stiff "as if he'd just had an injection of iron," Sammy feels his stomach drop as he realizes how hard his future in the world is going to be.