Point of View This story is written entirely from the perspective of nineteen year old Sammy, a grocery clerk. Updike has created an atmosphere of striking opposites warring with one another throughout the entire story. Sammy is bored and excited at the same time. He has worked in the A&P long enough to have memorized every item that is sold in the aisle directly in front of his cash register as well as what …showed first 75 words of 644 total…

…showed last 75 words of 644 total…had crossed the line between a young man and a man. He realized too late however, that the rewards were not worth the price he had paid. I am sure he still had visions of the girls at the beach sitting on lawn chairs laughing with their families, until he noticed the lawn chairs stacked on the pavement outside the store. He realized that life would be full of hard choices from that time forward.