Sammy, a nineteen-year-old A&P cashier, has an encounter with women and authorities. A&P, by John Updike, is the story of a teenage boy who not only reminds us of our youth, but also reminds us of the mistakes we had to make when we became adults. Sammy's actions were not ones that made him mature instantly, but his actions were lessons to be learned in order to mature. As three girls enter an A&P, Sammy, a cashier, is amazed by their beauty and boldness. When he first notices them, the eye-catching wardrobe they adorn caught his attention. They only wore bathing suits. He begins to go through each one as if he were creating a chart of the best. He examines them all and soon chooses the leader of the group on which he focuses his attention the most. The physical characteristics and dress of the “…queen,” as he calls her, attract all his attention and soon cloud the judgment of his surroundings (18). It is a perfect scenario for teenage boys who have not been in relationships or have had many encounters with the opposite sex. His naive youth has given him a narrow vision. Because he idolizes the girls in the shop, he puts them on a pedestal. Passes off the mundane shopping that others do as boring and predictable. Referring to the people as sheep, he sees them as simple farmers who notice the queen and her two-person court, but never make a scene about them (19). The attitude it implies towards them is that they are not worthy of dealing with these royalties or, worse, question their attire. He builds this fantasy in his mind that these girls are something to be admired by being so bold as to show off and flaunt their beauty in a simple grocery store. He belittles the attention his colleagues show as if… middle of paper… the girls he admired or society. His inexperience on how to resolve or act on the issues led him to react in a non-rational way. Even though he sees that his actions have no effect, we can only see that this is a learning process that every teenager must go through on the path to maturity. Works Cited Dessner, Lawrence Jay. "Irony and Innocence in John Updike's 'A & P'." Short Fiction Studies 25.3 (Summer 1988): 315-317. Rpt. in Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Literature Resource Center. Network. February 19, 2014.Peltier, Robert. "An Essay on “A&P”." Short stories for students. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Literature Resource Center. Network. February 16, 2014. Update, John. "A&P" Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. 7th ed. Eds. XJ Kennedy and Dana Gioia. Boston: Pearson, 2013. 17-21. Press