Plot Summary of A&p

Summary

A&P is a store in which the main character of the story, Sammy works. Three girls in bathing suits come into the store and Sammy describes their attire. One girl he specifies as being the queen. He consistently tracks the girls with his eyes every time they appear in A&P. Later on the manager of the store asks the girls to leave when they are "decent". Sammy disagrees with the manager and quits his job. The girls had already left when Sammy left his job behind.

A plot can be defined as a sequence of events and somewhat different from a mere summary of the story itself. A story would be closer to the outline of events while a plot should show the close and logical relationship between events. For the first short class discussion group writing of an English literature class, I've summarized the plot of the short story A&P by John Updike. Through this short writing I intend to not only show the individual scenes of A&P but also the flow that leads one scene to the next.

Plot summary

Sammy, who works at A&P, sees three peculiar girls at the store. The girls were wearing bathing suits which were clearly unfit for the environment. However, in Sammy's eyes the girls are not a disturbance, but rather a delightful sight. While, Sammy is enthusiastic about the visual pleasures he earns from the girls, the manager of the store disapproves of the girls and eventually asks them to leave. Upon seeing the manager embarrassing the girls, Sammy takes a stand in order to look heroic. After quitting his job, he realizes his attempt to appeal to the girls had failed, leaving him with nothing but regret.