By going against their gender roles and dressing inappropriately in A&P, they also create the possibility of tragedy occurring. The manager of A&P, Lengel, an old Sunday school teacher embodies what should be the male gender role of the time when he publicly berates the girls for being dressed that way in the store. Despite the girls' attempts to justify dressing this way by saying they were just coming in to buy something, Lengel maintains his masculine gender role of keeping the women in line. Lengel states quite matter-of-factly, “We want you to be decently dressed when you come in here.” (Update 234). It is at this moment that Queenie goes even further by going against her gender roles by responding to Lengel. Queenie's response of "We are decent" (Updike 234) shows her somewhat rebellious and disrespectful nature, and her disdain for Lengel's patriarchal authority. In this scenario one would have instead expected her to apologize to Lengel and leave the store with her friends since he was not only male but older than her so he asked her