Week 1C -Quote-response

"She kind of led them, the other two peeking around and making their shoulders round. She didn't look around, not this queen."(Updike pg.15)
This couple of sentences in the story "A+P" struck me as important because it sets the tone of the personalities of the girls and helps to set up the fascination of the boy at the cash register to this girl "Queenie". At first you think that he is attracted to the girl in the green two-piece by the way he takes such pains to notice where the sun has hit her body and how. But this is the turning point. It also helps us to understand Sammy's thought process a little further also. He admires the girl for taking lead and having the courage to walk through a grocery store in nothing but a bathing suit! If this queen in the bathing suit wouldn't have had such a hold over her friends courage, if all of them would have been bashful and embarrassed the story would have had an entirely different tone. He may have ridiculed all of them with his internal dialogue or even been the one himself to call them on their indecency. It's interesting how the author, John Updike, put such accurate reactions of human nature in this short story. It seems that when someone is doing something against the grain with confidence, we all wonder, "Why are they so confidant, should I be doing the same?". But if the person goes about the same thing with rounded shoulders and insecurity, there are no end to the people jumping at them to correct their behavior.