10/19/21, 8:28 PM Topic: Week Four Discussion

https://online.valenciacollege.edu/courses/123618/discussion_topics/1567635 1/2

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Lureen Flores Yesterday

1. The title of the story is A&P, named after the store the characters are in. The title is fitting since the entire story takes place

in the grocery store. The story could have another name, but it would need to be titled about bathing suits in a grocery store. The grocery store was the main setting in which all the observations of the young girls in bathing suits, patrons, store manager, and clerks were described.

2. The era described sounds like the early 1970's or late 1960's. The title of the story list's 1962, but the words used to describe the setting have a more 1970's feel, based on the price of King Fish Herring Snacks costing .49 cents. Sammy's description of the year 1990 made it seem like it was far off into the future. There was nothing fancy about the town that is stuck 5 miles away from a beach and no one could care less how anyone looked.

3. The language in the story is informal with some "old school" slang words not used today. Sammy used slang terms nubble, jiggled, house-slaves, scuttle, Fiddle-de-doo, and joints. Sammy then named the girl's Queenie, Big-Tall Goony-Goony, and Plaid Scrunchy. If the story were located in St. Leo, FL in the year 2020 of which I had to google, by the way, it may have the same outcome of the store manager asking them to be covered when entering the store. The slang terms may be more updated but St. Leo is also a small town near Tampa, therefore I could see many similarities.

4. Sammy describes the "A&P" store fashion as house-slaves in pin curlers, moms in sandals, shirts, shorts sporting varicose veins with six children in tow. The dress of the patrons was very informal. The description of the clerks was more formally dressed in ironed white shirts with a bow-tie, covered by a stitched apron. The young girls were the exact description of informal wearing nothing but swimsuits and walking around on bare feet.

5. The element of "hypocrisy" is Sammy's perception of the informal dress code at the store where pin curlers and other informal and unappealing dress code is accepted but swimsuits and bare feet in a beach town were frowned upon. The townspeople were used to seeing swimsuits on the beach and the store is a short distance from the beach. Sammy was gawking at the young girls in their scantily clad swimsuits to quickly shop at the store when the store manager made a valid point of store dress code. Sammy was aware of the store dress code but enjoyed the entertainment they provided. Sammy quit his job to look like a hero but it didn't matter since the girls left the store and did not acknowledge him for his efforts to defend them.

Summer Cooper 2:11pm

1. The title of the story is “A&P” because the story takes place within an A&P grocery store and is centered around it. I think another title would work but it would have to be a title with a

correlation to the contents of the story. The role the grocery store itself plays in the story is the location of where the events of the story and to represent a store that is popular in this time of America.

10/19/21, 8:28 PM Topic: Week Four Discussion

https://online.valenciacollege.edu/courses/123618/discussion_topics/1567635 2/2

2. The time era I would place this story based on what I read would be the 1960’s. I could tell this from the description of the swimsuits and the snacks the girls were looking at. Sammy’s description of the 1990s seems like something he thinks about or looks forward to.

3. I think the story is written in a mainly informal tone with some formal parts. The slang terms Sammy used were house-slaves, Fiddle-de-do, nubble, and scuttle. The slang-wors I think Sammy would use if he was in Saint Leo, Florida in 2020 would be things that are similar to what he said in the original story but more up to date.

4. Sammy describes the fashions of all the different customers in the A&P. Such as, he describes the woman who typically show are dressed in “a shirt or shorts or something before they get out of the car” and the girls from the beach are dressed in swimsuits like “She had on a kind of dirty-pink - - beige maybe, I don't know -- bathing suit with a little nubble all over it and, what got me, the straps were down. They were off her shoulders looped loose around the cool tops of her arms” I think Sammy would describe the swimsuits to be more informal although he doesn’t seem to be bothered too much about it.

5. An example of hypocrisy in the story would be how even though they are a beach town the presence of women in swimsuits is absurd to the shop manager. Sammy is a bit hypocritical because although he finds the swimsuits to be informal he lets it slide because he finds the girls attractive.