John Updike's "A&P" features a few moments in the life of a young man who works at a grocery store. He becomes enamored of three girls who walk into the store dressed in bathing suits. The protagonist Sammy, finds that his choices lead to sometimes disappointing consequences as he is faced with having to explain awkward circumstances to his parents. Updike develops this coming of age story using details as part of the exposition, rising action, crisis, climax, falling action, and resolution.
             The exposition begins in the first paragraph as the three girls walk into the store. Sammy is at his register checking out other customers when he notices the girls. "In walks three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I'm in the third checkout, with my back to the door, so I don't see them until they're over by the bread"(Updike 12). Updike provides details about Sammy's interaction with the girls. These details humanize Sammy. The reader can readily identify with a youngster whose attention is diverted at work. "The story opens abruptly- 'In walks these three girls'-and maintains that vernacular, conversational, ungrammatical voice throughout its 250 lines"(Peck 3). The exposition occurs in the first few sentences and sets up a series of events between the girls and the other customers.
             The rising action begins in the first paragraph as Sammy rings up a box of Hi Ho Crackers
             incorrectly. The customer he is serving gives him trouble about the mistake and the reader observes the
             first of his many expressions of boredom with supper market society. "She's one of those cash-register-
             watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day
             to trip me up"(Updike 12). This incident creates a comical tone. "Sammy's voice is also explicitly
             humorous", as David Peck points out. The rising action also sets the stage for several crisis with...