The Witches of Eastwick

Tristan Emig Patricia Sayles ENGL 1302.705 09/20/2016 A & P Sammy quits his job at A&P because he admires how "Queenie" isn 't phased by societal norms and believes that she is correct in standing up for her freedom by blatantly violating the code of conduct set in place. In the 60 's the country witnessed several civil rights movements gaining momentum. People were beginning to realize that nothing would change unless someone stepped up. This piece of literature is a perfect example of those civil rights movements and how they unfolded. Sammy, the grocery clerk, fights the system in small ways, but ultimately makes a big move to change his life and gain some independence. The subtle imbalances of power and the small rebellious acts against these unbalanced situations by key characters in the story provide a glimpse into the motivations of real activists fighting for their respective rights. Sammy’s willingness to break the rules and his unusual thought process in “A&P” are representative of larger moves for freedom civil rights groups were making at the time. It is obvious from the beginning of the short story that the generation to which Sammy belongs are inherently different thinkers. When an elderly woman hassles him for mistakenly ringing up something twice, he likens her to a pig and describes her as “a witch about fifty,” and says “if she’d been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem,” (Updike 300). Reading this for the first time the…