John Updike -

“Sammy’s So-Called Life” In John Updike’s short story “A&P”, we meet a young man named Sammy. Sammy is the typical teenage boy. He is stuck in a mundane job at the grocery store with no future plans. He lives in an imaginary world, only dreaming about the things that he wants to do. But by the end of the story, he has learned an important lesson about life. One theme of this …

…he must go home and face the truth (and his parents). In the line “...and my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.” (pg. 19), we now see that he realizes that he must face the consequences of his actions for the rest of his life. Works Cited 1. Kennedy, X.J., and Dana Gioia. Literature- An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 8th edition. Longman, 2002.