A Feminist Reading of A&PG Gone are the days when humans could live impulsively, considering only physical pain and pleasure when making decisions . At least that's what we'd like to believe. In a display of pure innocence and ignorance, Sammy, a grocery store clerk at A&P, has managed to revert to the original behavioral patterns of his apelike ancestors. Sammy's future cannot be predicted, given his own illogical and irrational behavior. But we can, through a careful examination of Sammy's life, determine that Sammy is just a naive young man whose impulsive actions, partly due to his upbringing, compel him to participate in a cause for which he does not not worth fighting for, instead of using your talents for more constructive purposes. No matter how hard Sammy tried, he couldn't transcend the rational barriers of his evolutionary counterpart, the monkey. From the moment Sammy first looked at these three young women in swimsuits to his outburst and subsequent resignation, Sammy was unable to separate reason from basic sexual instinct. Sammy first comments, "The longer her neck was, the taller she was" (Updike 408) and later says, "From the third location, I look straight down that aisle to the meat counter, and I watched them all. the path” (Updike 408). After hours, perhaps even years, of being deprived of the sight of a beautiful girl, Sammy gave in to her natural animal tendency to "watch" and pursue a member of the opposite sex. It didn't matter to Sammy that he didn't even know the three girls and hadn't seen them much. Sammy's only overriding desire was, quite simply, sex. Sammy made no effort to think rationally about what he was doing; instead, he acted on impulse middle of paper...... ions were leaked, and Sammy began to truly realize what he was doing, his actions became more noble. Sammy can learn the importance of not backing down once decisions are made and standing up for your own opinions despite what others think. If we can set aside Sammy's initial motivations, which emphasized the importance of libido, there is much to learn from this now eminent grocery store clerk. If people finally decide to stand up for their beliefs, their situation and that of the world will undoubtedly improve. And then the world would be less endemic with people who seem to have missed their fair share of natural selection, and the world would be a much healthier place spiritually. Works Cited Updike, John. “A&P.” Bedford's Introduction to Literature. 2nd edition. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: St. Martin's Press, 1990. 407-411.