Choices and Consequences

An essential theme in “A&P” revolves around choices and their repercussions. Each main character in the story faces a decision and must deal with the resulting consequences. Often, these consequences are not immediately clear to them. Sammy, the cashier, makes the most evident and painful choice, and he somewhat understands the implications. When he decides to quit his job, he is aware that this decision will have lasting effects on his life. His family feels the impact, and he reflects on the situation as “sad.” By standing up for his principles—protesting the manager’s scolding of the girls—he knows that his life will become challenging. If Sammy quits his job every time he encounters an unpleasant situation, his life will grow increasingly complicated. In the short term, quitting means he must find another job, and his impulsive decision could label him as a troublemaker or misfit within his community.

The three girls also face consequences for entering the grocery store in their bathing suits. It is unlikely they were unaware of their inappropriate attire. In the early 1960s, women typically wore dresses, hats, and gloves when out in public. In their youthful eagerness to test societal boundaries, the girls are reprimanded by an adult. They also make a significant impression on two young men, Sammy and Stokesie, which may have been their unconscious intention. However, due to their choice to defy community standards, they experience embarrassment when chastised by an authority figure. Even Sammy’s act of solidarity cannot salvage the situation; the girls quickly leave the store without standing their ground, unlike Sammy. From their timid reaction, it can be inferred that they are unlikely to take similar risks in the future. This encounter with authority will likely conform them to accept societal norms. Sammy, on the other hand, due to his impulsive defiance, is less likely to conform blindly to arbitrary rules for the sake of maintaining harmony.

Lengel, too, makes a choice with entirely unforeseen consequences. After "haggling with a truck full of cabbages," he enters the store and could have ignored the three girls. They were just standing in the checkout line, and he was "about to scuttle into that door marked MANAGER." However, he decides to confront the girls in front of Sammy. If he considers any repercussions, he does not show it. He is simply enforcing the social norms of his time and place, expecting the girls to comply and assuming that Sammy and anyone else listening will agree with him.

The girls ultimately stop their protests, as Lengel anticipated, but Sammy quits—a move Lengel could not have predicted. To Lengel's credit, despite his rigidity and self-importance, he shows patience with Sammy. He does not yell or immediately order him out of the store but instead warns him of the serious consequences of his decision. Yet, it is Lengel's adherence to the social code—insisting that this incident be recorded in Sammy's personnel file and affect him for the rest of his life—that brings about these consequences. In a minor way, it resembles Greek tragedy. The characters in this drama are powerless to act differently, but it is not the gods who dictate their behavior; it is society, with its written and unwritten rules of expected conduct and penalties for deviating from those norms.

Individualism

Sammy asserts his individuality by quitting. He understands that, by the standards of his time, Lengel has every right to speak to the girls as he does. However, by standing up for the girls, Sammy challenges those standards and suggests a higher level of decency that dictates one should not embarrass others. By prioritizing which rules of conduct are more important, he asserts his individuality, unlike the girls, who slink away knowing they have broken societal norms.

Sammy is the only character in this story who asserts his individuality. Two of the girls merely follow their leader, and Queenie, easily embarrassed, gives in to Lengel. The other shoppers in the A&P are simply "sheep," nervously gathering at Stokesie's register to avoid the confrontation. Lengel is the enforcer of policy, a term often applied to rules that lack clear rational explanation. He blindly follows society's dictates, unable to articulate the reasons for those rules beyond stating that the A&P "isn't the beach," a remark so obvious and devoid of reasoning that it makes Sammy smile—a small but definite step toward his rebellion.