In “A&P”, John Updike tells the story of Sammy, an eighteen year old who we first encounter working the checkout line at the A&P, a small-town grocery north of Boston. As the story begins, three girls about Sammy’s age walk into the store wearing bathing suits. While this may have passed largely unnoticed in many other settings, it creates quite a commotion inside the old-town A&P, a store modeled in the …showed first 75 words of 842 total…

…showed last 75 words of 842 total…of heroism, but as he stammers through the words “I quit”, he knows that the change is already upon him. He knows It is but a matter of time before the notion of walking out of a job on an idealistic whim seems as foreign as the sheep life does to him now. And, regardless of how it may seem at first glance, he knew it well before these three girls walked through the door.