A&P

The way this story is narrated immediately triggers my memory of Catcher in the Rye. “I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not. I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell. She's one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I knowit made her day to trip me up” The way that he had a category of people which you know he ranted about to others in the past is actually quite funny. The story really is about the conformity of the times in the 1950's and youths urge to break way from it. The 'girls' in the story are certainly a symbol of this breaking away. So when he quits and follows them out the door, it's not so much him chasing the cute girls in bathing suits, but rather him following his desire for freedom from the norm.