How accurate are Sammy's judgments about the other characters?John Updike's "A & P"

John Updike's nineteen-year-old character,
Sammy, vacillates between being cynical and romantic.  As a cynic, he is a disappointed
idealist, so he looks at the shoppers and perceives their imperfections.  For instance,
women who come in from the beach wear a shirt and shorts if they come into the grocery
store. But, as mothers of several children, they have spider and varicose veins.  Other
shoppers move like "scare pigs in a chute." Of his employer, Lengel, Sammy expresses
disdain, for the man is too compliant with "policy."  He sees on Lengel's face "that sad
Sunday-school-superintendent stare."  However, when Queenie and her entourage enter the
grocery store, Sammy's cynicism metamorphoses into
romanticism.

Sammy watches the girls enter the store with
Queenie "showing them how to do it, walk slow and hold yourself straight."  As he
describes Queenie, Sammie objectifies her, describing her straps down, with nothing
"between the top of the suit and the top of her head except just
her..."  But, then, he becomes romantic, "I mean, it was more than pretty." 
Ironically, while it has been all right for him to objectify Queenie and the other
girls, Sammy is offended by the "house slaves"' and the "slaves"' having stared and
reacted to the girls who enter in swimsuits.  When the other men he works with view the
girls with lust, Sammy suddenly has another romantic urge and "feel[s] sorry for them,
they couldn't help it." 

Clearly, Sammy's judgments of
others are distorted by his cynicism. His attitudes towards Queenie and the other girls,
however, are colored by his teen-age urges and his romantic heart. Wishing to make an
impression upon the girls, Sammy makes what he considers a chivalric gesture and tells
Lengel that he should not have embarrassed the girls.  When Lengel retorts, "It was they
who were embarrassing us," Sammy acts romantically and quits his job.  However, the
girls take no notice of his chivalric act, hurriedly departing and mitigating the impact
of Sammy's chivalric and romantic act.  And, it is his poor judgement that brings Sammy
to the insight of knowing how hard "the world is going to be."