Raft Assignment

Ben Williams

Sammy from “A&P”

Many would agree after reading John Updike’s “A&P”, the main character Sammy is both a growing young man and a heroic teen. His life at work was the same social norm of a life everyone at that that time was living. He tried to change his boring replay of a life that was the same as everyone else’s at that time to more of how he wanted to live and express himself, instead of the way society expected him to live. Sammy also stood up for the females he fancied and admired, not only their attention but because of a split second decision that he made. In a sense one could say Sammy had succeeded in his goal of growing and becoming a heroic teen.

            Sammy was bored and who doesn’t get bored every once in a while? He took his boredom and made a change from a typical working class young man to a man making his own decisions. He did this by a change of lifestyle; so he quit his job at the supermarket. Knowing that his parents would not be happy, as his boss explained (Updike 413) he had to then quickly access that yes, his parents would be unhappy, because at that time he lived within the social norm for a teen, who would want to make his parents proud. His parents may have gotten him the job, so his decision to quit would make his parents look bad in society; which is another way his parents would be unhappy. Today, many kids or young adults still want to please their parents, but will make themselves happy before others. Sammy made that advanced decision during his time, to quit even though he knew his life would be harder. He even said, “I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter” (Updike, 414) From then on he was looked at as a growing young man who made his own decisions.

            Sammy is a hero. When he stuck up for the girls and their horrid unacceptable attire and quit to show that not everything should be how society wants it to be, this displayed his heroism. Also, he showed that people have the right to do what they want and how they want for it’s their constitutional right, and just because society thinks differently, they should not be looked down upon it. An example was when Sammy said, “You didn’t have to embarrass them” (Updike 413). Sammy was saying, let people be who they are and he was on the side of change. His boss responded, “it was they who were embarrassing us” (Updike 413), knowing that society would not accept that. So Sammy quit hoping the girls would hear, but they kept walking. This is not to say they might not have heard him, but perhaps they later on could have thanked him. He also did this to prove a point. Sammy’s actions made him appear as change but his bosses actions made him look like normal non-changing society. Sammy, by fighting for what he believed in against his evil boss, turned him into a hero.

            Sammy knew what he was doing was right. Since it was his decision, he could not be wrong. He could have started a trend that might have taken society to where we are today in. Who is to say the people he quit in front of did not see his message the same way he did? No matter if that happened or not, Sammy was in fact a hero and a growing young man in his own eyes, and much like his decision, he did no care how society reacted.