Post #5: Colton Quick

A&P: Question #2

In A&P Sammy, the narrator, is observing these girls who come into the store the he works in who are only wearing bathing suits. Throughout the story he is thoroughly examining every detail about them in a way most guys would do. The only thing about the scene he is describing is that it is unusual for these girls to be in bathing suits because it is in the middle of the city a ways from the beach in Boston, he states that “women generally put on a shirt or shorts or something before they get out of the car into the street.” So, this surprise, I think, makes Sammy analyze these girls all the more, just as any guy deprived girls in bathing suits would do. He definitely has a masculine gender identity and strong male sexuality. His male sexuality is seen in his analysis of the girls, and his masculinity is seen in how he tries to quit in front of the girls to show that he is standing up for them after his boss embarrassed them. Sammy just shows the stereotypical manly impulse to do anything we can to impress a girl even if it may turn out bad for us. In his case he ends up losing his job and the girls do not even stick around to talk to him after the act; I can identify with this as I have tried to impress girls and not gotten feedback from them. This is what I think this short story is trying to do. I think too that as society changes and man reach different ages men try and do different things to impress girls, for instance a lot of the time in high school I would try and impress girls with my athletic ability. I think in this story too that because Sammy is feeling that he is growing older now that he has just turned 19 that he must impress girls by being seen as a man rather than a boy. So he quits his job, symbolizing that jobs carry with them a meaning of maturity or coming of age.