Okoro
Sammy
The Evolution of Sammy
Kelechi Okoro
ENGL - 1302
Updike was clearly a master of his art as evidenced by his use of characters. Indeed, he told the story of his own evolution himself when he said "I began as a writer of light verse, and have tried to carry over into my serious or lyric verse something of the strictness and liveliness of the lesser form." [footnoteRef:2] The most poignant and impactful character to follow in the Updike story in terms of character evolution was Sammy, whose perspective is told in this story. There are three clear stages in Sammy's thought process as the bathing suit-clad girls enter, progress through and then exit the store. These stages are pushed along as far as Sammy is concerned based on the reactions and interactions with his coworkers including Stokesie and the penultimate scenario with Lengel, the manager. [2: Poetry Foundation. "John Updike: The Poetry Foundation." Poetry Foundation. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-updike (accessed October 20, 2013).]
The ways in which Sammy's focus and motivations shift in each of the three stages of the Updike story are palpable and extremely noticeable. This is first exemplified when Sammy takes his stand with Lengel near the end of the story, when he discovers how utterly pointless it probably was once using retrospection and introspection. The ending perhaps begs the question what Sammy's true motivations were, but the reader must decide for herself the true merit of the character. The cultural implications of all of the events are not hard to discover if one is aware and can contextualize the very different cultural and social times of early 1960's America. [footnoteRef:3] [3: Brown, Jeffrey. "Conversation: Archive Offers Revealing Look at John Updike | Art Beat | PBS NewsHour | PBS." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2010/06/conversation-updike.html (accessed October 20, 2013)]
The second stage arrives rapidly when the girls eventually make their way up to the cash register and are eventually confronted by the manager Lengel for dressing improperly, at least by his (and much of the surrounding society's) standards just a few years removed from the very conservative, Stepford Wives-type existence that was the 1950's. Sammy expounds on this theme further by mentioning the fact that the girls and young women of that day would "generally put on a shirt or shorts or something before they got out of the car." He also mentions that he can see "two banks and the Congregational Church and the newspaper store and three real-estate offices," among other things. This exchange demonstrated Sammy's repressed sexual feelings and…
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