A And P By John Updike

7 Pages 1750 Words

is beauty that confounds the issue when human aesthetics come into play” (Wells 127) that is when the confusion arises. Mesmerized by his initial sight of them, Sammy is on a romantic quest. Updike shows that Sammy is a “romantically infatuated young boy, for his frustrating infatuation with a beautiful but inaccessible girl whose allure excites him into confusing his sexual impulses for those of honor and chivalry” (Wells 127). Sammy solely views them as sex objects. He goes from noticing how little the girls are wearing, to what they are not wearing, to finally focusing on their bare skin. He initially notices that they are wearing “nothing but bathing suits, they didn’t even have shoes on” (Updike 211).
“Admiring the three girls for daring to enter the grocery store dressed in bathing suits, he especially likes the one who wears her strap down and her head high” (Greiner 297). With the lowered straps of her bathing suit, which exposed the un-tanned skin on her breasts, “Sammy draws a conclusion which suggests that they are like the commodities in the store, that is they are objects to be observed, handled, and used” (Thomson 215). He describes one of the girls as havin...