One of the main themes that continues to come up in Seventeenth Summer is plants and growth.
Angie and Jack both share their first date at the beginning of summer, when the
trees and all the foliage are lush and green. The first date that Angie and
Jack go on is a late night boat ride when summer is in full bloom. Angie
mentions the “tomato plants seem to be straightening in the sun (Daly 9), but
by the end of the novel, they are covered in the first frost of winter and they
are “cold to the touch (Daly 282)” as Angie and Jack pick them towards the end
of the novel. Jack mentions the “big yellow summer moon (Daly 15)” when they
are out on the boat, and the “greenish water (Daly 13)” from the algae growth the
sun is providing slaps against the sides as they glide along in the lake. Even
before the dance, we see Daly mention the garden, where Angie looks for flowers
to accent her evening dress. Her night is accented by the garden and the whimsical
picking of flowers and feeling the dew from the flowers on her wrist,
symbolizing vibrant life and a peaceful nature to the way that her and Jack
were beginning their relationship. The contrasting end that is them going their
separate ways is at the time when the frost begins to affect the crops. Angie
and Kitty worked in the garden to pull out all the ripe vegetables and
overgrown vines, signaling the harvest and the end of the summer. The leaves
were “rough and scratchy (Daly 259),” contrasting the earlier description of
the lush and softness of the grass on Jack and Angie’s first date. When they go
on the lake highway drive before Lorraine leaves for Chicago, we see the changing
of season described in the “fading yellow-green (Daly 262)” of the willow trees
at the sides of the road. The last night they go out, coincidentally the same excursion
as their first date, is plagued with imagery of the cold and the wind that
brings the “sharp darkness (Daly 288),” that is, the painful end to their
relationship.
Hi Chris,
ReplyDeleteYour first sentence says this is about theme, but prompt b is about motif, and the plant imagery is a motif, so I am going to assume that's what you meant. This response includes a lot of impressive close reading of the descriptions of nature. You are absolutely correct that the vegetation is a motif that mirrors their romance. As it is flourishing, the garden is thriving; as it is coming to an end, the frost is coming. I'd encourage you to take your observations to the next step and tell me what that means. What does the mirroring of their relationship with the motif of vegetation say about the relationship? If you can answer that, then you can work that answer into your organizing thesis for the response. It would also be helpful to have some small paragraph breaks, maybe a statement of thesis and then one paragraph on the growing and vibrant plants and one on the frost at the end of the novel.
Whoops, I meant to answer Cat A Prompt A with this one, my next post about Anne Frank is Cat A Prompt B, sorry about the confusion!
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