65 pages • 2 hours read
Edith WhartonSummer
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1917A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Coming of Age
During the several weeks in which the story takes place, Charity transforms from a diffident, laconic late adolescent to a sexually active, vibrant young woman. Early in the book, she exclaims that she hates everything; however, once enamored of Lucius Harney, she basks in the afterglow of their physical relationship. Even the physical environs of her previously despised small town of North Dormer seem to take on a glorious quality.
When Charity first appears in the novel, her primary goal is to save enough money to relocate from her hometown. She has wielded a great deal of control in the Royall household for several years since the death of her adoptive mother, and Royall attempts to appease her in small ways. She experiences joy, at least initially, in her first physical relationship; sadly, this emotion is dulled considerably by her unintended pregnancy and the departure of her beloved Harney. A short time later, Charity finds herself in the squalid office of the same unethical doctor who nearly killed Julia Hawes during an abortion. Her dreams of independence and escape are replaced by a desperate attempt to survive and to ensure the well-being of her unborn child. Following a disastrous attempt to return to the Mountain of her origin in an effort to find supportive relatives, Charity is saved once again by Lawyer Royall, who brings her home to North Dormer as his wife. Her dreams of youthful romance with a handsome young lover have been squelched, but she has gained enough perspective to appreciate the decency of the older man’s actions.
The Disparity Between Social Classes
Early 20th-century America was a society that did not encourage, or tolerate, extensive interaction among members of various social classes. While urban environments were more forward-looking in terms of mixed economic groups participating in public education, rural towns retained a more fixed, Victorian perception of working class versus elite class interaction.
This case presents itself quite significantly in the complex repercussions of the love affair between the wealthy, educated Lucius Harney and the lower-middle-class, minimally educated Charity Royall. The young woman is gratified when she realizes that the handsome, young architect is physically attracted to her immediately upon their first meeting; however, the practical consequences of their romance prove to be insurmountable. Although Charity dreams of a more sophisticated, glamorous existence earlier in the novel, she later gazes upon the dark woodlands surrounding the Mountain on which she was born and marvels at her own foolishness in having imagined that she might have been able to locate Harney at his New York City address. She is bright and perceptive but will never have the same self-assured poise that sees Harney through an awkward confrontation with Lawyer Royall, nor is she capable of articulating her thoughts in a grammatical, educated manner. Even when Charity is feeling her most beautiful—dressed in a white satin gown sewn by the local seamstress—she is chagrined by the realization that her matching slippers were probably castoffs previously owned by her more sophisticated, educated, wealthy counterpart and competitor for Harney’s affections, Annabelle Balch. Her qualms are well founded; as it turns out, Harney is engaged to Annabelle Balch. She is a member of his own class and a socially acceptable spouse.
The Rights of Women
Charity Royall’s life epitomizes the state of economic dependency upon males experienced by most women at the time that Summer was written and published. The societal factors that resulted in this reliance were varied; the most salient reasons had to do with women’s inability to attend colleges and universities; the lack of jobs that paid a living wage to women, and the ignorance of, and inaccessibility to, reliable forms of birth control.
Author Edith Wharton, who enjoyed a remarkably independent life and a lucrative profession, was well aware of the fact that her own privileged background had enabled her to be liberated from the conventional barriers that might otherwise have presented themselves. Her texts emphasized the restrictions placed upon individuals as a result of their socioeconomic classes and genders. While the young, pregnant, unwed Charity might have been distraught under any circumstances, she is particularly vulnerable due to the fact that she has no specific job skills. One might argue that a young, urban woman in a similar situation with factory work experience might enjoy more autonomy than the apparently more fortunate North Dormer resident. Faced with the social criticism in her small town or with a return to the rural poverty of her origin, Charity determines that she will travel to the nearest city and seek work as a prostitute. It is only through marriage to Lawyer Royall, who Charity comes to respect but certainly not to love in the romantic sense, that she and her unborn child are saved.
It is worth noting that at this point in history, physicians were forbidden to educate patients about birth control or to prescribe contraceptives to them. Margaret Sanger, a nurse, was prosecuted for the public dissemination of birth control information in 1914. She opened one of the country’s first birth control clinics in New York City in 1916.
Related Titles
By Edith Wharton
