This video is nearly 8 years old and still helping out students like me write essays on short stories!! Thank you for this analysis, it gave me a much deeper understanding on a good pieces of literature.

You are a life savor to us AP English Students I am telling you. Keep doing what you are doing ! We love you !!

THANK YOU just deleted three pages of my essay and am going a completely different approach now. Really gave me a new understanding of this short story.

I was staring at a blank sheet in Microsoft word for hours until you perfectly dissected AnP for me. Now i have a clear idea of the plot and theme, here I go. Thanks a bunch!!!

I just wrote an analysis essay about this and what I took from it was a theme of the way women are treated differently from men; they are more scrutinized and their influence and worth is often based on their attractiveness and sexuality. Sammy hyper-focuses on the looks and physicality of the girls, yet we do not get a single physical description of a man in the story. Also, the difference in Sammy’s attitude towards the three girls versus the older woman at the beginning (the “witch”) and the other women he describes ( the “houseslaves” and the women with “varicose veins”) in the story shows how heavily a girl’s value is based upon how attractive she is. I doubt Sammy would have stood up for the girls if they had been older or more unattractive. Also, I did not think that Sammy quitting his job was noble or kind. He quit because he wanted to be the girls’ “unsuspected hero” and hoped that they would see him do it and thank him. Sammy’s last line of how his life will be harder now also reflects the idea of how men and women differ. He chose to speak against his boss and chose to quit and thinks of how hard his life will now be, yet he fails to acknowledge that the girls did nothing to bring on Lengel’s ridicule and did not ask for this hardship. They were criticized simply because they are viewed in a sexual way by the men of the story. What do you think of this idea? My english teacher said that this isn’t the correct way to view the story and that I’m too focused on a feminist view of it, which I don’t agree with haha. I’d love to hear your opinion. :)

Your analyses are amazing. Thank you so much for what you do!

Thank you for doing these, you have helped me immensely by making it much easier to digest these short stories, it does not go unnoticed, again thank you so much for these videos.

I love watching you because I always have the same thoughts but you catch things I miss every time! Love it!

Great Perspective! I found and listened to the short-story today and it's great to see others give their perspective on it. Thank-you.

So grateful you wrote this break down! I had to read this for my english class and didn't understand what the girls themselves represented within the story, or what it was even ultimately about. Your video made SO MUCH SENSE TO ME! Thank you :)

Thank you, professor. This helps me so much. You do commentaries on almost all the essays we are being assigned this semester. You must be a good English professor!

Thanks for this great video! I had read the story but didn't understand what the point was. I appreciate you clearing things up for us :)

Thank you so much! You give such great insight to help thoroughly understand the story!

excellent description and analysis!

Look at how Sammy describes the girls who walk into the store. Right in the first part, he describes each girl and her swimsuit. Notice everyone's reaction to the girls. These girls stir things up, right? They wouldn't have this effect if they were clothed normally. Their bodies create the story. Sammy is lustful, sure, but he also defends the girls' right to wear swimsuits in the store. He respects their courage even though he doesn't get to know them. Maybe this helps? Hope so!

you are saving me this semester,, literature is a lot of readings and it takes a long to get that right. thank you very much!

Thank you sooooo much, really helped me study for my final!

From a story that seemed kind of weird for the ending, you made it clear as water the meaning behind it. Tysm.

thank you for the detailed explanation!

I loved this story since I read it my first year of college- the professor never really analyzed it like this for us. He just made us write an an essay and I must have done well as I got an A in the course, but I never fully understood the significance of it, I just always knew I liked it. Thanks for the analysis.

Thank you so much. Your analysis is very useful for my writing essay assignment :)

Thank you so much for your help and love your videos! I was able to write my essay and complete it. I also watched your video about "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson and it has also helped me! You're a life saver haha :)

Thank you. You are always very helpful!

Thank you so much !!! great explanation.

Girl, thank you.

I read this once in an English class in my community college years. For me, it's one of those stories that gets better and more relevant with time, especially when you are working a job that can get boring sometimes.

You are absolutely the BEST! I have passed all my exams based on your Analysis. You are a life saver. Thank you very much! This video may be old but is new to me.

You have some interesting thoughts that I haven't thought of. thanks

thank you so much for the analysis will help me a lot

Thank you! this helped so much.

Thank you so much! this really helped me out.

Great explanation, thank you! We are going over this for my English summer course and the professor linked your video.

Thank you! Helped me so much

Thank you! I really enjoyed the analysis.

thank you! that was wonderful!

thank you so much! we had to read this in honors English and I really wasn't understanding it, but this helped a lot! :)

Hope it went well!

Awesome! Thank you very much, I was able to elaborate even more with some notes I had taken while reading :)

Hmm. I was expecting some info on how to get low prices at A&P. I was not aware there's a story called "A&P".

Keep Up the Good Works! Much Appreciated. FR

感謝你救了我的英文報告!! this is very helpful for my English report. Thank you very much!

thank you so much for the video💚 you are helping me a lot while studying for my exams

great analysis.

Thanks for your insight

this has been super helpful for my college English class thank you!

thank you very much :) i have a quiz over A and P tomorrow !

Thank you💜

very good and precise analysis !

Thank you!!

Great Video! So helpful!

Omg thank you so much!😭❤️

Thank you for your videos!

Thank you for this video, madam.

beautiful thank you

Aww . . . thanks! You're welcome!

Thank you!

THANK YOU SOO MUCH

Very Helpful!!

You're welcome!

Cool! You're welcome.

I read the story twice, but I didn't understand some Idea. However, when I watched the video it really me a lot what is all about. Thank you so much.......

Wow you are amazing

THank you!!!

Good point. Because the story is from the Cold War era, Sammy's vision of the future includes the possibility of Soviet ownership of the A&P. He's looking toward the future in the story -- especially his own. He doesn't want a boring adult life. I'm not seeing a communist view here because Sammy doesn't want everyone to share wealth. He wants wealth. He admires the herring snacks, for example -- a sign of fine dining and high status. He rebels against the conventional. Bank, church=conventional.

Thank u sooo much

One of the best thumbs up for u 🔑

wow thank you so much

Very well explained...thanks

Thks!!

great video

you saved my life

An interesting idea. Queenie certainly inspires Sammy, and she isn't developed enough as a character to have her own goals and full identity. So that fits. It may be that Sammy projects an identity onto her, which also fits. But then, I think he sees her as more of a real person than Lengel does. For Lengel, she is a type. For Sammy, she is an actual girl whom he has observed carefully. I think you could make an argument that Queenie is a MPDG, but I can also see a counter-argument. Thoughts?

Yay thank you for this Analysis! (:

Hi,I am an international student. From my point of view, the language Sammy use was not polite to women. He said "You never know how girl think...." Do you think Sammy is offensively sexist? [In fact, most of Chinese students in my class thought about that, but none of America students mention it.] Also, I am curious that the attitude Sammy have toward to the society (which you mentioned he want to have materialization life as Queenie has) is related to the social phenomenon in 1862?

reading this in 9th grade, thanks for help.

Very helpful

Excuse me, Can you explain the short story (The lesson by TONI CADE BAMBARA)?

what are some motifs of the A&P that I should look out for when reading the story

You are good

THIS IS ABOUT OCEAN GROVE, NEW JERSEY I THINK.

What is the representation of female's bodies in A&P?

What issues you believe was brought up in this story? For example, Sexism, gender inequality? Please help me, I can't seem to find a clear topic of issue to write about.

You are a gift from GOD

Do you view Queenie as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

Is there an underlining message regarding communism? In that part where Sammie says something about predicting how one day a&p could be called Alexander tea company... Something like that... when he looked outside Sammie describes seeing bank, church... I

Crystal Balls to the future.

With absolute and full respect: I am shocked. I usually love your videos. I like to hear an informed point of view on stories I teach myself, see if I have any gaps, etc. You missed the point of this story, entirely. You fell for the set-up. The tone (masked by a seemingly charming but unreliable narrator) and reality (his attitudes aren't much less grotesque than the butcher sizing up the girls' joints as they walk by) are at odds all the way through the story! Lengel is respectful and correct here. Even Sammy admits that the rules are reasonable when he's not paying as much attention to his fevered thoughts. You don't even address Sammy's resentment of his customers or the profusion of horribly objectifying and patronizing language in the guise of defending the girls. Love your videos, and I will continue to watch them, I'm sure, but you really missed the mark on this one.

You truly have exemplary teeth.

I thought you were a dude watching the frontpage

I don't think there is any indication that the protagonist it ready to face the choice he made at the end of this story. The implications of this story are a bit larger than what you've offered, and one of the largest implications is that Sammy is decidedly NOT ready to face the choice he made. There is a reason that he doesn't see the girls when he exits the A&P, and that reason is that the girls don't exist. The regulations of the world, here in microcosim, actively seek to eliminate what these girls represent. What we see in the supermarket is a kind of failed coup. The girls come in, radically different than the other shoppers and the moment they do, every shopper has a choice, and it's the same choice that Sammy has. It's business as usual, or it's something else. They can accept these girls into their world, or they can actively close them off from their world. The A&P chooses not to embrace them, the shoppers can hardly look at them, and the coup fails. Sammy doesn't accept this. He speaks out, feeling deep within himself the themes of the story, expecting that others may join him in his dissent, expecting that this very, very mild revolution may still be salvaged. But by his exhibitionism of publicly quitting, the shoppers are as off-put as they had been by the girls in their bathing suits. Nobody speaks out, nobody wants the world to be hard on them hereafter. Sammy goes out, leaves the store, but the girls aren't there. This does not surprise him. How could the girls be there? He just witnessed what happens to people like these girls; they are told by the powers that be to dissappear, they are told to change. Not to mention the fact that the girls could not exist as revolutionaries outside of the A&P. The second the walk through the door, and this is really crucial, they become ordinary girls in bathing suits. The grocery manager, in telling them to leave, has made them into ordinary girls. The whole world is agaisnt Sammy and these girls, and we see a parody of this theme at the end with the baby crying, refusing to behave after having been refused candy. The mother is described as shouting at the kid, and here the mother is the world and we have another demonstation through this description of the baby crying of the world vs rogue agents. He quit his job, and now sees the kin of his plight not in the form of attractive girls, but in the form of a baby. At the end of the story we see the strength of the world, and we know that Sammy has gone against it's grain. He knows it too. There is no optimism whatsoever at the end of this story.

Thank you so much !!! great explanation.